A GIS based wireless sensor network coverage estimation and optimization: A Voronoi approach

Abstract

Recent advances in sensor technology have resulted in the design and development of more efficient and low cast sensor networks for environmental monitoring, object surveillance, tracking and controlling of moving objects, etc. The deployment of a sensor network in a real environment presents several challenging issues that are often oversimplified in the existing solutions. Different approaches have been proposed in the literatures to solve this problem. Many of these approaches use Voronoi diagram and Delaunay triangulation to identify sensing holes in the network and create an optimal arrangement of the sensors to eliminate the holes. However, most of these methods do not consider the reality of the environment in which the sensor network is deployed. This paper presents a survey of the existing solutions for geosensor network optimization that use Voronoi diagram and Delaunay triangulation and identifies their limitations in a real world application. Next, it proposes a more realistic approach by integrating spatial information in the optimization process based on Voronoi diagram. Finally the results of two cases studies based on the proposed approach in natural area and urban environment are presented and discussed. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.