Power-aware node deployment in wireless sensor networks

Sensor networks have attracted intensive interests due to its extendable capability. In this paper, we attempt to answer a fundamental but practical question: "how should we deploy these nodes?" In most current designs, sensors are randomly or uniformly distributed because of their simplicity. However, the node deployment has a great impact to the wireless systems. It in essential highlights an open issue that, instead of maintaining the coverage for some snapshots of the network, how we can provide a continuous coverage in the whole lifecycle of the wireless sensor networks. We will exhibit the weakness of the uniform distribution by disclosing the fatal sink routing-hole problem. To address this problem, we propose a non-uniform, power-aware distribution scheme. Our analysis and simulation results show that the power-aware deployment scheme can significantly improve the long-termed network connectivity and service quality.