Title: Rest with eyes open: stochastic target coverage in wireless sensor networks with data fusion

Authors: Pan Wu; Xiaobing Wu; Guihai Chen

Addresses: State Key Laboratory for Novel Software Technology, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China ' State Key Laboratory for Novel Software Technology, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China ' Shanghai Key Laboratory of Scalable Computing and Systems, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China

Abstract: Target coverage and network lifetime are two conflicting system metrics in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this paper, we explore the tradeoff between coverage and lifetime from three perspectives: randomness of the target appearance, requirement of system reliability, and utilisation of data fusion. In previous studies targets are mainly assumed to appear in a deterministic way and the requirement of system reliability and the use of data fusion have been largely overlooked. In particular, given a specific requirement of system reliability, we consider how to maximise the network lifetime subject to the constraint of stochastic coverage of random targets with data fusion. We first prove the NP-completeness of the problem. Then we present a probabilistic set covering (PSC) based algorithm for small scale networks. But this algorithm does not scale well. We thus propose an effective algorithm for large scale networks. Finally extensive simulations validate the effectiveness of our algorithms.

Keywords: WSNs; wireless sensor networks; data fusion; stochastic target coverage; network lifetime; random targets; system reliability; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2016.074254

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2016 Vol.20 No.1, pp.16 - 25

Received: 14 Jun 2013
Accepted: 26 Dec 2013

Published online: 20 Jan 2016 *

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