MobiBar: An autonomous deployment algorithm for barrier coverage with mobile sensors

Critical homeland security applications, such as international border surveillance and zone monitoring in case of biological attacks, require the timely creation of a barrier of sensors along the border to be monitored. Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks have the potential to meet the desired coverage requirements, by exploiting the device coordination and self-deployment capabilities. However the design of effective and efficient algorithms is challenging. In this paper we propose MobiBar, an autonomous deployment algorithm for k-barrier coverage with mobile sensors. MobiBar coordinates sensor movements in order to construct k distinct complete barriers and to ensure the desired level of redundancy. We formally prove that MobiBar terminates in a finite time and that the final deployment provides the maximum level of barrier coverage with the available sensors. Furthermore, we show that MobiBar is able to self-reconfigure and self-heal the network to deal with dynamic coverage requirements and sudden sensor failures. We study the performance of MobiBar by means of simulations. Results show that it achieves performance close to centralized solutions and it outperforms recent distributed approaches with respect to several performance metrics.