Sensor Coverage Model

Abstract

Sensor coverage models are used to reflect sensors' sensing capability and quality. They are abstraction models trying to quantify how well sensors can sense physical phenomena at some locations, or in other words, how well sensors can cover such locations. In almost all cases, sensor coverage models can be mathematically formulated as a coverage function of distances and angles. The inputs of such a coverage function are the distances between a particular space point and sensors' locations, and the output is a nonnegative real-valued number and is called coverage measure of this space point. In some cases, a space point is said to be covered if its coverage measure satisfies some predefined threshold. On the other hand, sensor types are diverse, and each sensor type has its own manner of sensing physical stimuli. Also application scenarios are various, and each application scenario has its own way of interpreting sensory data. As such, sensor coverage functions can be defined in different forms and are subject to different interpretations, depending on sensor types and application scenarios. This chapter introduces some common sensor coverage models, including their motivations, formulations, interpretations, and applications.