Push & Pull: autonomous deployment of mobile sensors for a complete coverage

TL;DR

This paper introduces Push&Pull, a distributed autonomous algorithm for mobile sensor deployment that ensures complete and uniform coverage in hostile environments without prior knowledge, proven theoretically and validated through simulations.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel distributed algorithm for autonomous sensor deployment that guarantees complete coverage without prior environment knowledge or manual tuning.

Findings

Guarantees complete and uniform coverage with sufficient sensors.

Ensures termination of the deployment process, avoiding oscillations.

Achieves efficient coverage with moderate energy use in irregular areas.

Abstract

Mobile sensor networks are important for several strategic applications devoted to monitoring critical areas. In such hostile scenarios, sensors cannot be deployed manually and are either sent from a safe location or dropped from an aircraft. Mobile devices permit a dynamic deployment reconfiguration that improves the coverage in terms of completeness and uniformity. In this paper we propose a distributed algorithm for the autonomous deployment of mobile sensors called Push&Pull. According to our proposal, movement decisions are made by each sensor on the basis of locally available information and do not require any prior knowledge of the operating conditions or any manual tuning of key parameters. We formally prove that, when a sufficient number of sensors are available, our approach guarantees a complete and uniform coverage. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the algorithm execution always terminates preventing movement oscillations. Numerous simulations show that our algorithm reaches a complete coverage within reasonable time with moderate energy consumption, even when the target area has irregular shapes. Performance comparisons between Push&Pull and one of the most acknowledged algorithms show how the former one can efficiently reach a more uniform and complete coverage under a wide range of working scenarios.