A Set Cover-Based Density Control Algorithm for Sensing Coverage Problems in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks consist of a large number of sensor nodes with limited power and resource. To prolong network lifetime, the energy consumption must be somehow reduced. In this paper, we propose a localized density control algorithm for energy savings. The goals are to maintain a minimal number of active sensor nodes and to reduce radio-traffic intensity while conserving the sensing coverage of the network. Our localized algorithm is based on a greedy solution of a weighted set-cover problem. Each node locally computes whether to sleep or to stay active. Given that the local decision might worsen the sensing coverage, we also introduce a voting scheme for selecting active nodes to assure that a node can sleep if and only if its sensing area is completely covered by its active neighbors. We have implemented our localized algorithm and voting scheme on Tiny OS and evaluated on TOSSIM. The result indicates that our algorithm is efficient and viable for practical use.