Satisfying coverage and connectivity in bandwidth constrained sensor networks

One of the main problems in wireless sensor networks is the successful coverage of a number of targets lying on a field and at the same time the maximization of the lifetime of the network. Many algorithms have been proposed in the literature in order to find the maximum number of disjoint or non-disjoint sets of sensors (cover sets), where one set can be active at any one time. The complexity of the problem increases if we consider that the channel bandwidth of the base station, where the sensor nodes transmit their monitoring data, is limited. The limited channel bandwidth leads to cover sets that cannot monitor all the available targets resulting in a coverage breach. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that computes cover sets that minimize the overall coverage breach. This algorithm takes into account several problem parameters, such as the connectivity requirement between the sensors and the base station, the coverage status of the nodes and their remaining battery life. Our experimental results show that our algorithm outperforms existing approaches in various performance metrics and that the connectivity constraint sets an upper bound on the algorithm´s output.