Sensing coverage for randomly distributed wireless sensor networks in shadowed environments

Sensing coverage is viewed as one of the critical measures of the performance offered by a sensor network. In previous studies, the sensing range of a node is generally assumed to be a determinate value in all directions. For most types of sensing signals emitted from a far field, the obstructions in the propagation path will induce an extra loss in the received signal power, and cause a large variation, referred to as shadowing effects, in the received signal strength. The objective of this work is to examine the impact of the shadowing effects on the sensing coverage. Analytical and simulation results for the sensing coverage of a large-scale randomly distributed WSN in shadowed environments are provided.