AKCE: An Efficient and Accurate K-Coverage Eligibility Algorithm in Wireless Sensor Networks

For monitoring critical applications, the K-coverage configuration is extensively exploited to ensure that each location is covered by at least K active sensor nodes. The well-known K-coverage eligibility (KE) algorithm ensures that a monitored area is K-covered, but incurs a considerably high computation cost. Several approximate algorithms accomplish the K-coverage configuration at low cost, but either generate redundant active nodes, or cannot retain the degree of coverage. In this paper, an efficient and accurate K-coverage eligibility (AKCE) algorithm is proposed to settle all of the above critical problems. We prove that whether a sensor node is eligible to sleep or stay active can be accurately determined by tracing only small and crucial areas within the sensing range of this node, i.e., decision areas. Experimental results show that the AKCE algorithm (i) guarantees that a monitored area is completely K-covered with no redundant active nodes, (ii) has the computation cost as low as 0.7% and no more than 31.5% of that of the KE algorithm, (iii) outperforms popular approximate algorithms, and (iv) is scalable in network size.