Coverage Control Problem In Sensor Networks

In the mobile wireless sensor networks(MWSNs), it is very important to design a desirable coverage topology, which could maintain a good sensing area, achieve longer lifetime and optimize the overall structure of the network. Therefore, the research on the coverage control strategy has attracted more and more attention recently.In this dissertation, several control problems in terms of several types of sensor networks are addressed for the sake of increasing the coverage performance and minimizing energy consumption in the process of coverage control.Firstly, coverage control algorithms related to homogeneous MWSNs are analyzed. Energy balanced extended virtual force algorithm(EBEVFA) is designed to solve two issues. The algorithm using neighbor node selection strategy solves the node stacking problem in a high communication range network. On the other hand, EBEVFA puts forward a network energy balance strategy. This strategy increases the energy value of the minimum energy node in the network, which could make node energy consumption more evenhanded in a coverage control process.The characteristics of the heterogeneous wireless sensor network topology are also considered in this thesis. The logical topology of the network is employed to replace the physical topology of the network in order to solve the node stacking problem in high communication range network. The proposed angle control strategy can achieve the ideal structure of heterogeneous MWSNs. And key node energy protect tactics are designed to save the energy for key nodes. Depending on the analysis above, energy balanced extended virtual force algorithm for heterogeneous sensor networks(EBEVFA-HSN) is presented. The simulation results show that EBEVFA-HSN achieves high coverage for heterogeneous sensor networks. The energy cost of the node is more reasonable. In addition, a virtual demonstration platform is constructed to visually display the whole procedure of node redeployment.Furthermore, coverage control for MWSNs in 3-dimensional space is explored. Compared with the traditional 2-dimensional MWSNs, the nodes in 3-dimensional space are capable of higher mobile performance. The sensing areas are spheres rather than circles, which makes the topology of MWSNs more complicated. This work analyzes the specific features of 3-dimensional MWSNs. Thereafter, combining the aforementioned results on energy balance and the fact that energy costs differ with directions. This thesis proposes an extended virtual coverage control algorithm addressing 3-dimensional MWSNs coverage issue. This algorithm is able to balance the energy cost as well as achieve high coverage performance provided by controlling the moving distance in the high-energy-expend direction.Finally, experimental platforms are designed and implemented to verify the effectiveness of proposed coverage control algorithms. The experimental platforms are conposed of autonomous vehicles and spherical drones, which could be used to test the performances of coverage control algorithms for MWSNs in 2-dimensional space or 3-dimensional.