The article discusses new technology for environmental monitoring and risk assessment in the area of surveillance of potentially dangerous objects using the intellectual sensor techniques. We also consider the problem of optimal placement of sensors in the surveillance zone. To solve this problem the following main heuristics are considered: block cover heuristic, hexagonal cover heuristic, pseudo hexagonal cover heuristic, evolutionary meta-heuristic, etc. The experimental results showed that all of the proposed algorithms can be applied to solve the problem, the choice of algorithm is dictated by the specific requirements of the task.
