Uncertainty-aware and coverage-oriented deployment for sensor networks

We consider the sensor deployment problem in the context of uncertainty in sensor locations subsequent to airdropping. Sensor deployment in such scenarios is inherently non-deterministic and there is a certain degree of randomness associated with the location of a sensor in the sensor field. We present two algorithms for the efficient placement of sensors in a sensor field when the exact locations of the sensors are not known. The proposed approach is aimed at optimizing the number of sensors and determining their placement to support distributed sensor networks. These algorithms are targeted at average coverage as well as at maximizing the coverage of the most vulnerable regions in the sensor field. Experimental results for an example sensor field demonstrate the application of our approach. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier Inc.