Global Sensor Deployment and Local Coverage-Aware Recovery Schemes for Smart Environments

One critical issue, for a wireless sensor network (WSN) to operate successfully, is to provide sufficient sensing coverage. Define the smart sensing environment as a sensing system with the capability to sense the environment and respond properly in an automated manner. In this paper, we target on smart sensing environments and deal with heterogeneous sensors (here sensor heterogeneity is defined as sensors having different sensing ranges) equipped with actuation facilities to assist in the sensor self-deployment. A coverage-aware sensor automation (CASA) protocol is proposed to realize an automated smart monitoring network. Two centralized algorithms are included in the CASA protocol suite: enhanced virtual forces algorithm with boundary forces (EVFA-B) and sensor self-organizing algorithm (SSOA). Unlike most previous works that tackle the deployment problem only partially, we intend to address the problem from both global deployment (EVFA-B) and local repairing (SSOA) perspectives. The EVFA-B protocol exerts weighted attractive and repulsive forces on each sensor based on predefined distance thresholds. Resultant forces then guide the sensors to their suitable positions with the objective of enhancing the sensing coverage (after a possibly random placement of sensors). Furthermore, in the presence of sensor energy depletions and/or unexpected failures, our SSOA algorithm is activated to perform local repair by repositioning sensors around the sensing void (uncovered area). This capability of local recovery is advantageous in terms of saving the communication and moving energies. Performance of the proposed sensor deployment strategies is evaluated in terms of surveillance coverage, monitoring density, network self-healing competence, and moving energy consumption. We also implement our CASA protocol suite in a real-life monitoring network (MoNet) to demonstrate the protocol feasibility and validate the MoNet detection capability of emergency events.