The Coverage Problem in Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Network: An Improved Algorithm of Virtual Forces

At the present time, many algorithms use "virtual forces" method to solve the sensor nodes coverage problem. However, all of them studied the homogeneous sensor networks. This paper proposed an extended virtual force algorithm for the coverage of heterogeneous sensor networks. It adopted the probability sensor model, combined the static coverage strategy with the dynamic coverage strategy according to the difference of sensor radius, analyzed the threshold distance based on the difference of sensor radius. Additionally, it proposed a novel sensor "relay move" technique during the movement of sensors. Finally, we take a simulation. Simulation results show that using the algorithm is able to deploy the heterogeneous sensors in the aimed region suitably to solve the coverage problem of sensor nodes and it can balance the dissipative energy efficiently which benefits for prolonging the lifetime of network.