Dynamic Coverage and Connectivity Maintenance Algorithms for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

In wireless sensor network, accidental death of nodes in predictable or unpredictable way may cause coverage and connectivity problems of the original network. In this paper, potential approaches to maintain the network in the post deployment scenario is proposed that lets the sensors work alternatively by identifying the redundant sensing regions in the dense networks under the assumption that the transmission range (Rc) is equal to the sensing range (Rs) or <; 2Rs of a node. The proposed coverage and connectivity maintenance algorithms decide which neighbors of a dead node to migrate, and to what distance, so that the loss of coverage and connectivity can be repaired with low mobility of the nodes. In this work, decision and movement of the nodes are completely autonomous and involve movement of only one-hop neighbors of a dead node to minimize energy consumption due to mobility. Performance analysis of the algorithms show that average mobility distance of the nodes is very small and energy consumption is very less by maintaining the coverage and connectivity.