This paper describes the concept of sensor networks which has been made viable by the convergence of microelectro-mechanical systems technology, wireless communications and digital electronics. First, the sensing tasks and the potential sensor networks applications are explored, and a review of factors influencing the design of sensor networks is provided. Then, the communication architecture for sensor networks is outlined, and the algorithms and protocols developed for each layer in the literature are explored. Open research issues for the realization of sensor networks are

An effective approach for energy conservation in wireless sensor networks is scheduling sleep intervals for extraneous nodes, while the remaining nodes stay active to provide continuous service. For the sensor network to operate successfully, the active nodes must maintain both sensing coverage and network connectivity. Furthermore, the network must be able to configure itself to any feasible degrees of coverage and connectivity in order to support different applications and environments with diverse requirements. This paper presents the design and analysis of novel protocols that can dynamically configure a network to achieve guaranteed degrees of coverage and connectivity. This work differs from existing connectivity or coverage maintenance protocols in several key ways: 1) We present a Coverage Configuration Protocol (CCP) that can provide different degrees of coverage requested by applications. This flexibility allows the network to self-configure for a wide range of applications and (possibly dynamic) environments. 2) We provide a geometric analysis of the relationship between coverage and connectivity. This analysis yields key insights for treating coverage and connectivity in a unified framework: this is in sharp contrast to several existing approaches that address the two problems in isolation. 3) Finally, we integrate CCP with SPAN to provide both coverage and connectivity guarantees. We demonstrate the capability of our protocols to provide guaranteed coverage and connectivity configurations, through both geometric analysis and extensive simulations.

One fundamental issue in sensor networks is the coverage problem, which reflects how well a sensor network is monitored or tracked by sensors. In this paper, we formulate this problem as a decision problem, whose goal is to determine whether every point in the service area of the sensor network is covered by at least k sensors, where k is a predefined value. The sensing ranges of sensors can be unit disks or non-unit disks. We present polynomial-time algorithms, in terms of the number of sensors, that can be easily translated to distributed protocols. The result is a generalization of some earlier results where only k =1is assumed. Applications of the result include: (i) positioning applications, (ii) situations which require stronger environmental monitoring capability, and (iii) scenarios which impose more stringent fault-tolerant capability.

Spatial query execution is an essential functionality of a sensor network, where a query gathers sensor data within a specific geographic region. Redundancy within a sensor network can be exploited to rv uce the communication cost incurv1 in execution of such quer ies. Anyr eduction in communication cost wouldr esult in an e#cient use of the batter y ener gy, which is ver y limited in sensor s. One appr oach to r educe the communication cost of a quer y is to self-or ganize the networ# inr esponse to a quer , into a topology that involves only a small subset of the sensor s su#cient to pr ocess the quer y. The quer y is then executed using only the sensor in the constr ucted topology. In thisar icle, we design and analyze algor thms for such self-or"/0 zation of asensor networ tor educe enerP consumption. In par icular we develop the notion of a connected sensor cover and design a centr alized appr oximation algor thm that constr ucts a topology in ol ing anear optimal connected sensor co er . We pr o e that the size of the const rst ed topology is within an O(log n)factor ofthe optimal size, wher n is the networ size. We also de elop a distr ibuted self-or$1" zationer" on ofour algor thm, and prv ose seer/ optimizations tor educe the communication oer"E1 of the algorithm. Finally, we evaluate the distributed algorithm using simulations and show that our approach results in significant communication cost reduction.

monitora region fortra$ tra versafl sensors ca be deployed to perform colla ora1= etafl$1 detection. Sucha sensor networka chievesa certaO level of detection performaR7 witha na$# cia1$ cost of deployment. This pa era ddresses this problem by proposingpan exposure a a mea6F6 of the goodness ofa deploymenta nd presents a asCfl1fl h for sequentia deployment in steps. Itillustra7fl tha the cost of deploymentca be minimized to a hieve the desired detection performaCR bya ppropria6$fl choosing the number of sensors deployed in ea h step.

This paper investigates the problem of providing network coverage using wireless sensors that operate on low duty cycles (measured by the percentage time a sensor is on or active), i.e., each sensor alternates between active and sleep states to conserve energy with an average sleep period (much) longer than the active period. The dynamic change in topology as a result of such duty-cycling has potentially disruptive effect on the operation and performance of the network. This is compensated by adding redundancy in the sensor deployment. In this paper we examine the fundamental relationship between the reduction in sensor duty cycle and the required level of redundancy for a fixed performance measure, and explore the design of good sensor sleep schedules. In particular, we consider two types of mechanisms, the random sleep type where each sensor keeps an active-sleep schedule independent of another, and the coordinated sleep type where sensors coordinate with each other in reaching an active-sleep schedule. Both types are studied within the context of providing network coverage. We present specific scheduling algorithms within each type, and illustrate their coverage and duty cycle properties via both analysis and simulation. We show with either type of sleep schedule the benefit of added redundancy saturates at some point in that the reduction in duty cycles starts to diminish beyond a certain threshold in deployment redundancy. We also show that at the expense of extra control overhead, a coordinated sleep schedule is more robust and can achieve higher duty cycle reduction with the same amount of redundancy compared to a random sleep schedule.

In a sensor network, the infrastructure (in terms of the sensor capabilities, number of sensors, and deployment strategy) plays a significant role in determining the performance of the network. In this paper, we study the effect of infrastructure decisions on the performance of a sensor network. We study the effect of the infrastructure for two types of network delivery models (phenomenon driven and continuous) and different network protocols (DSR, DSDV and AODV). We show the performance both in terms of network efficiency as well as meeting the application accuracy and latency demands. By exploring the criteria for effective infrastructure configurations, we open the door for network optimizations that control the effective topology to better achieve the application requirements.

An effective approach for energy conservation in wireless sensor networks is scheduling sleep intervals for extraneous nodes, while the remaining nodes stay active to provide continuous service. For the sensor network to operate successfully, the active nodes must maintain both sensing coverage and network connectivity. Furthermore, the network must be able to configure itself to any feasible degrees of coverage and connectivity in order to support different applications and environments with diverse requirements. This paper presents the design and analysis of novel protocols that can dynamically configure a network to achieve guaranteed degrees of coverage and connectivity. This work differs from existing connectivity or coverage maintenance protocols in several key ways: 1) We present a Coverage Configuration Protocol (CCP) that can provide different degrees of coverage requested by applications. This flexibility allows the network to self-configure for a wide range of applications and (possibly dynamic) environments. 2) We provide a geometric analysis of the relationship between coverage and connectivity. This analysis yields key insights for treating coverage and connectivity within a unified framework: this is in sharp contrast to several existing approaches that address the two problems in isolation. 3) We integrate CCP with SPAN to provide both coverage and connectivity guarantees. 4) We propose a probabilistic coverage model and extend CCP to provide probabilistic coverage guarantees. We demonstrate the capability of our protocols to provide guaranteed coverage and connectivity configurations, through both geometric analysis and extensive simulations.

Abstract — We study the coverage properties of large-scale sensor networks. Three coverage measures are defined to characterize the fraction of the area covered by sensors (area coverage), the fraction of sensors that can be removed without reducing the covered area (node coverage), and the capability of the sensor network to detect objects moving in the network (detectability), respectively. We approach the coverage problem from a theoretical perspective and explore the fundamental limits of the coverage of a large-scale sensor network. We characterize the asymptotic behavior of the coverage measures for a variety of sensor network scenarios. We find that the coverage of a sensor network exhibits different behaviors for different network configuration and parameters. Based on the analytical characterizations of the network coverage, we further discuss the implications to network planning and protocol performance of sensor networks. I.

When a sensor network is deployed to detect objects penetrating a protected region, it is not necessary to have every point in the deployment region covered by a sensor. It is enough if the penetrating objects are detected at some point in their trajectory. If a sensor network guarantees that every penetrating object will be detected by at least £ distinct sensors before it crosses the barrier of wireless sensors, we say the network provides £-barrier coverage. In this paper, we develop theoretical foundations for £-barrier coverage. We propose efficient algorithms using which one can quickly determine, after deploying the sensors, whether the deployment region is £-barrier covered. Next, we establish the optimal deployment pattern to achieve £-barrier coverage when deploying sensors deterministically. Finally, we consider barrier coverage with high probability when sensors are deployed randomly. The major challenge, when dealing with probabilistic barrier coverage, is to derive critical conditions using which one can compute the minimum number of sensors needed to ensure barrier coverage with high probability. Deriving critical conditions for £-barrier coverage is, however, still an open problem. We derive critical conditions for a weaker notion of barrier coverage, called weak £-barrier coverage.