Coverage and Deployment Algorithms in Wireless Sensor Networks

Efficient energy management schemes are essential in a wireless sensor network, since sensor nodes are battery powered. To subdue the energy problem, it is important to have efficient deployment and scheduling mechanisms. A heuristic to solve simple coverage problem, which schedules sensor activity so that all sensor nodes need not be active at the same time, is proposed. Results match the theoretical upper bound for all the experiments. The performance of ABC (Artificial Bee Colony) algorithm in solving deployment problem of wireless sensor networks is also investigated. Since random deployment does not always lead to effective coverage, especially if the sensors are inordinately clustered and there is an inadequate concentration of sensors in some parts of the terrain, this type of deployment at computed optimal locations proves effective. Experiments are carried out for complex cases when certain targets in the region need to be monitored with greater certainty. Preliminary results show that swarm algorithms like ABC and PSO can also be effectively used for area and target coverage problems, in 2-D and 3-D terrains. Keywords-wireless sensor network; deployment; coverage; swarm