Mobile Sensor Deployment and Coverage Using Multi-Agent-based Collective Formation Schemes

In this paper, we present a novel mobile wireless sensor deployment and network coverage technique using multi-agent-based collective formation control. Most of the existing approaches of sensor deployment are focused on centralized methods, which restrain the sensor nodes to maintain fixed distance among all neighboring nodes. Therefore, these approaches have some drawbacks, vulnerabilities and inflexibility, especially when some of the sensor nodes are not functioning due to unexpected node failure, e.g., power loss. As a result, sensor coverage could be compromised or diminished. To address these problems, we propose to incorporate an attractive/repulsive (AR) collective formation model to control the dynamics of wireless sensor nodes which are considered as autonomous agents. We show that sensor deployment with AR model provides robustness and flexibility. When some sensor nodes are lost unexpectedly, movement of neighboring nodes are relatively localized so that the least amount of energy will be used to regain control of the network coverage. Consequently, the proposed method can significantly improve the time-efficiency, network stability and sensing coverage when sensor nodes are deployed to explore harsh terrains and unpredictable environments.