A Distributed Protocol for Ensuring Both Probabilistic Coverage and Connectivity of High Density Wireless Sensor Networks

Coverage and connectivity are both attractive issues in wireless sensor networks. Both of them are important measurements of quality of service (Qos). Coverage configuration is an effective method to alleviate the energy-limitation problem of sensor nodes, while network connectivity is an unelectable problem guaranteeing the network usefulness. Existing researches promoted many protocols to configure network for coverage preserving or network connectivity or both of them. Our paper differs from these existing protocols in four key ways: (1) We proposed a distributed probabilistic coverage-preserving configuration protocol (DPCCP) based on Neyman-Peason probabilistic detection model; (2) A simplified algorithm on coverage check is developed using Voronoi diagram; (3) Considering the network connectivity, we integrate DPCCP with SPAN to ensure both probabilistic coverage and network connectivity; (4) To evaluate the coverage percentage of our protocol, we propose an approximate algorithm. Simulation results show that DPCCP+SPAN can effectively reduce the number of active sensors and prolong the network lifetime on the precondition of probabilistic coverage-preserving and network connectivity.