On optimizing sensing quality with guaranteed coverage in autonomous mobile sensor networks

The advancements in robotics and wireless communications provide us with the opportunity to combine the mobility and wireless sensor networks so that various objectives can be achieved simultaneously with less required resources. Specifically, mobility enables sensors to dynamically adjust their positions for better sensing quality, and offers a higher probability for guaranteeing the required coverage at the same time. In this paper, we propose a novel coordinating scheme for autonomous mobile sensor networks to optimize the target sensing quality while guaranteeing the required coverage of the field of interest. The whole problem is transformed into a finite horizon optimization problem, to which several solving algorithms are designed. Extensive simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.