DRFL: Directing robots to failures using a list

The individual failure of a sensor is a great problem that damages the life of the sensor network. The treatment of failed sensors is necessary to ensure the continuation of sensor network services. Among the strategies that can be used to repair the failures, is the placement of new sensors in the positions of failures using robots. In this paper, we present DRFL. DRFL (Directing Robots to Failures using a List) is a failure treatment solution based on a new robot exploration mechanism. So, robots follow a virtual grid graph to explore successfully the deployment area to discover the failures and repair them. Otherwise, sensors detect and calculate locally the positions of their failed neighbor sensors. To speed the robot exploration, we use a directions list, and a new calculation method of displacement distance. The evaluation of DRFL proves a significant improvement of failure discovery time, which improves the treatment time of failures.