On Barrier Coverage in Wireless Camera Sensor Networks

The paper proposed a distributed algorithm, namely CoBRA (Cone-based Barrier coveRage Algorithm), to achieve barrier coverage in wireless camera sensor networks (WCSNs). To the best understanding, CoBRA is the first algorithm which try to deal with the barrier coverage issue in WCSNs. Based on some observations, the basic concept of CoBRA is that each camera sensor can determine the local possible barrier lines according to the geographical relations with their neighbors. A sink in a WCSN initiates Barrier Request (BREQ) messages to form the possible barrier lines. Afterward, a barrier line is constructed by the Barrier Reply (BREQ) message initiated by another sink. CoBRA mainly includes three phases: Initial Phase, Candidate Selection Phase, and Decision Phase. In the Initial Phase, each camera sensor collects the local information of its neighbors and estimates the possible barrier lines. In the Candidate Selection Phase, a sink initiates the BREQ packets and forwards the BREQ packets to camera sensors. Camera sensors receiving the BREQ then reforward the BREQ packets to its neighbors who are capable of forming a barrier line. All camera sensors receiving the BREQ will forward the BREQ to their neighbors again in the same manner. Finally, in the decision phase, after the BREQ message is transmitted through the whole monitoring area, a BREP message is used by the sink to select a barrier line in a WCSN. The barrier coverage is achieved by finding the barrier line in the monitoring area. Experiment results show that CoBRA can efficiently achieve barrier coverage in WCSNs. Comparing to the ideal results, CoBRA can use fewer nodes to accomplish barrier coverage in random deployment scenarios.