An efficient exact method with polynomial time-complexity to achieve k-strong barrier coverage in heterogeneous wireless multimedia sensor networks

Abstract

Barrier coverage in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) plays a pivotal role in surveillance and security applications. It serves as a fundamental mechanism for identifying and detecting potential intruders who endeavor to infiltrate a sensor barrier. Achieving $k$-strong barrier coverage is a vital indicator of a WSN’s capability to detect unauthorized intrusions. This paper establishes efficient $k$-strong barrier coverage in hybrid wireless multimedia sensor networks, referred to as MMS-KSB. The primary goal is to identify a minimal number of mobile sensors to obtain $k$-barrier coverage. Exhibiting the combinatorial structure, previous research on building $k$-strong barrier has failed to provide a polynomial time solution for the considered problem and resorted to approximation algorithms. We, therefore, introduce a precise algorithm, named ExA-KSB, and provide theoretical analysis to substantiate that our proposed method achieves an exact solution with polynomial time complexity. Furthermore, we conduct comprehensive experiments to evaluate the efficacy of our algorithm by comparing it with existing approaches. Numerical results demonstrate that ExA-KSB surpasses previous algorithms, and offers superior solution quality with competitive computational efficiency.