Distributed Deployment Algorithms for Coverage Improvement in a Network of Wireless Mobile Sensors: Relocation by Virtual Force

Efficient deployment algorithms are developed in this paper to increase the coverage area in a network of wireless mobile sensors. The proposed strategies iteratively compute the new candidate position of each sensor based on the existing coverage holes. These holes are obtained using a Voronoi diagram for the case of sensors with the same sensing ranges, and a multiplicatively weighted Voronoi (MW-Voronoi) diagram for the case of sensors with different sensing ranges. Each sensor is driven by some virtual forces which are applied to it from the vertices and boundaries of its Voronoi cell. These forces are obtained in such a way that when the sensor is relocated, the covered area of the corresponding cell increases. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed strategies, and their superiority to existing algorithms.