On Solving Area Coverage for Heterogeneous Directional Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks play important roles in the intelligent systems of current technology, such as the Internet of Things (IoT). The heterogeneous directional sensor network (HDSN), which contains a large number of sensor nodes with different capabilities and is limited in sensing direction, has become more realistic in many applications. However, most existing works in the literature focus on homogeneous and omni-directional sensor networks, which cannot be efficiently applied to real-world applications. Therefore, in this study, we propose a novel algorithm called the Van der Waals Force-Based Algorithm for Heterogeneous Directional Sensor Networks (VW-HDSN) to solve the coverage problem in HDSNs. The simulation results illustrate that our algorithm can achieve a superior coverage ratio compared to that of a random approach by 18.66%. The results also suggest that adding efficient nodes to the network will significantly improve its performance. Another benefit of our algorithm is that it can be generalized to a fully heterogeneous network where all nodes are diverse in angle of view and sensing radius.