ISOGRID: an Efficient Algorithm for Coverage Enhancement in Mobile Sensor Networks

This paper presents a novel algorithm, called ISOGRID (isometric grid-based algorithm), for autonomous deployment of mobile sensor networks. Upon an initial random placement of sensor nodes, the algorithm iteratively computes node movements to enhance sensing coverage and avoid obstacles while ensuring sensor connectivity. The principle is to redeploy the sensor nodes such that the communication graph approximates the layout of an isometric grid. Based on a number of simulation experiments, we have verified that the proposed algorithm always yields sensor deployments of wide coverage and desired topologies while ensuring collision-free motions of robots and promising wireless communication among sensor nodes. As the algorithm runs in a decentralized framework, it is computationally efficient and scalable. We also suggest another deployment algorithm, MEC (minimum enclosing circle-based algorithm), as an improvement to Minimax presented in (G. L. Wang, et al., March 2004) and extensively utilize it in the simulation examples to make comparison with ISOGRID