An Energy Efficient Distributed Algorithm for Connected Sensor Cover in Sensor Networks

The quality of monitoring offered by the network is the primary issue in sensor applications. Based on the coverage of a target area by deployed sensors, this quality is generally measured. Coverage is the monitoring of each point in the target area by at least one sensor, inside the sensing range. To activate from a previously deployed set of sensors, choosing the least set of sensors is a probable solution to the problem, such that all locations are k-covered. But, because of its lessening in interference among active sensors and total energy consumption, attaining a least set of sensors is grave. However, the problem of selecting the smallest amount of sensors is NP-hard. In order that forming a logical routing topology for data gathering and transmission to the query source, the selected set of sensors should form an connected communication graph. Consequently, to pick an optimal set of sensors fulfilling the conditions of coverage with connectivity, a combined algorithm is necessary. In this paper, we propose to develop an energy efficient distributed algorithm for the connected sensor cover design to reduce the energy consumption with a lower communication overhead. Rather than treating coverage and connectivity as two separate sub problems, the proposed algorithm attempts to merge them in a single algorithm. Every sensor has a priority assigned to it, in the proposed distributed algorithm. Based on their remaining energy and battery capacity, the priorities are assigned. Naturally the nodes with high residual energy and battery capacity are assigned to be higher priorities. To reduce the chance for selecting the least priority nodes, the connected sensor covers are chosen with high priority nodes. To reduce the energy, the low priority nodes that are not needed in the coverage can go to a sleep mode. We evaluate the distributed algorithm using simulations and show that our approach results in significant reduction of energy, with strong connectivity and coverage.