Distributed Algorithms for k-Coverage in Mobile Sensor Networks

A critical problem in mobile sensor networks is how to move the sensors so that the intended area is k-covered. There are two approaches to solve the problem. Base station assisted centralized algorithm or a distributed algorithm where each sensor determines its next movement based on local information (position of nearby sensors). We have first proposed a distributed algorithm for 1-coverage. Here, a sensor computes the force acting on itself by its neighbor at a distance d. This force is repulsive/attractive depending on d being less/more than the desired distance. For k-coverage, we have reduced the desired distance by $\sqrt k $. We have run a set of experiments to evaluate the performance of the proposed distributed algorithms.