Percentage coverage configuration in wireless sensor networks

Recent researches on energy efficient coverage configuration in wireless sensor networks mainly address the goal of 100% or near 100% coverage preserving. However, we find that a small percentage of loss of coverage, which is acceptable in many applications, can result in dramatic increase in energy savings. Therefore, in this paper percentage coverage rather than complete coverage is selected as the design goal, and a location-based Percentage Coverage Configuration Protocol (PCCP) is developed to assure that the proportion of the sensing area after configuration to the original sensing area is no less than a desired percentage. Numerical testing results show that PCCP can not only guarantee the desired coverage percentage but also generate more energy efficient configuration in comparison with the existing schemes so that the system lifespan is extended significantly.