Bio-inspired Algorithms for Coverage Efficiency in Wireless Sensor Networks

KEYWORDS bio-inspired algorithms, coverage preservation, clustering, energy conservation, multi-objective optimization, wireless sensor networks. 1 INTRODUCTION A major design step in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is to maximize the covered area of a targeted region while at the same time maximizing the network lifetime. Energy efficiency is directly related with efficient routing of the data, and the clustered WSNs are naturally used to reduce the communication overhead, and thereby decreasing the energy consumption and interference among the sensor nodes [1]. Through data fusion and aggregation of the sensors " data at the cluster centers, called cluster heads, the total amount of data sent to the sink can be significantly reduced, saving energy and bandwidth resources. Oftentimes sensor networks must provide persistent coverage of the entire monitored area. Many applications require the ability to provide information from each part of the monitored area at any moment in order to meet the application " s quality of service (QoS). While both cluster-based sensor network organization and coverage-maintenance protocols have been