Event-driven enhanced coverage for sensor networks

Abstract

In recent years, wireless sensor networks are getting lots of attention due to their extensive applications, such as environment monitoring, battlefield surveillance, and intelligent home. However, they are characterized by extremely limited resources, such as energy and computing capability. To address this, my thesis develops a novel scheduling algorithm called EDEC (Event-Driven Enhanced Coverage) specifically for scheduling sensing units. The EDEC reduces the sensing redundancy by separating the monitoring phase anid event observing phase, decreasing sensing overlap among densely-deplored sensors, and employing Busy-Tone technology. In tire meanwhile, the original sensing capability of a sensor network, i.e. coverage degrees, can be maintained. The experimental results show that the EDEC can greatly prolong the network lifetime without decreasing the network capability, and the load can be evenly distributed to all nodes. In addition, the EDEC is flexible enough to be integrated with many existing communication protocols without too many changes to their original designs.