A Genetic-based Algorithm to Solve Priority-based Target Coverage Problem in Directional Sensor Networks

The Directional Sensor Networks (DSNs) have recently drawn considerable attention with respect to their extensive applications in various situations. In this regard, covering a set of targets in a specific region while maximizing network lifetime is considered as a major problem related to the DSN, which is resulted from limitation in sensing angle and battery power of directional sensors. The problem gets more challenging when the targets have different coverage quality requirements. In the present study, this problem is referred to as Priority-based Target Coverage (PTC) that has been proved to be an NP-complete problem. In this regard, a genetic-based algorithm along with a repair operator is developed, which is able to select a proper subset of directional sensors for providing the coverage quality requirements for all targets. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm, several experiments were performed and the results were compared to those of another algorithms already introduced to literature.