Graph-theoretic Critical Sensor Determination and partition elimination in mobile sensor networks

In this paper, a Critical Sensor Determination and Substitution (CSDS) strategy is proposed to address the important problem of network partitions in mobile sensor networks (MSN) due to the failure of particular sensors. CSDS utilizes a graph-theoretic method to locally identify critical sensors with 2-hop neighboring information. Then, an efficient backup sensor selection algorithm is cooperated to monitor the critical sensors and, if necessary, substitute it in order to eliminate the partitions in MSN. The main contribution of our proposed work is that CSDS only requires the relocation of only one sensor in each partition elimination process, so that the impacts on the primary missions of the MSN is minimized. Experimental simulations are conducted to evaluate the correctness and effectiveness of CSDS.