An Area Coverage Scheme Based on Fuzzy Logic and Shuffled Frog-Leaping Algorithm (SFLA) in Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

Coverage is a fundamental issue in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). It plays a important role in network efficiency and performance. When sensor nodes are randomly scattered in the network environment, an ON/OFF scheduling mechanism can be designed for these nodes to ensure network coverage and increase the network lifetime. In this paper, we propose an appropriate and optimal area coverage method. The proposed area coverage scheme includes four phases: (1) Calculating the overlap between the sensing ranges of sensor nodes in the network. In this phase, we present a novel, distributed, and efficient method based on the digital matrix so that each sensor node can estimate the overlap between its sensing range and other neighboring nodes. (2) Designing a fuzzy scheduling mechanism. In this phase, an ON/OFF scheduling mechanism is designed using fuzzy logic. In this fuzzy system, if a sensor node has a high energy level, a low distance to the base station, and a low overlap between its sensing range and other neighboring nodes, then this node will be in the ON state for more time. (3) Predicting the node replacement time. In this phase, we seek to provide a suitable method to estimate the death time of sensor nodes and prevent possible holes in the network, and thus the data transmission process is not disturbed. (4) Reconstructing and covering the holes created in the network. In this phase, the goal is to find the best replacement strategy of mobile nodes to maximize the coverage rate and minimize the number of mobile sensor nodes used for covering the hole. For this purpose, we apply the shuffled frog-leaping algorithm (SFLA) and propose an appropriate multi-objective fitness function. To evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme, we simulate it using NS2 simulator and compare our scheme with three methods, including CCM-RL, CCA, and PCLA. The simulation results show that our proposed scheme outperformed the other methods in terms of the average number of active sensor nodes, coverage rate, energy consumption, and network lifetime.