Coverage Optimization for Circular Sector Sensor Networks: A Joint Sensing Strength Approach

This paper considers the coverage optimization of a circular sector sensor network in a region. We first present a new comprehensive performance index called the joint sensing strength, originating from the concept of the joint probability. This index takes all sensors’ cover strength into account, hence, is a good reflection of information fusion among the network, and can be applied to quantify the fused sensing coverage strength on a specified point in the region with the circular sector sensor network. A total coverage performance function based on the joint sensing strength can then be constructed for the specified region and optimized with the gradient descent algorithm. A simulation example is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.