An optimisation-based approach for wireless sensor deployment in mobile sensing environments

Abstract

We consider a novel application in wireless sensor networks where mobile phones and wireless sensors can collaborate to collect sensing data. Although mobile phones can perform sensing at different locations, it is a challenge to provide stable sensing quality and availability over the entire area. One approach is to deploy stationary sensors at specific locations to maintain the sensing quality and availability. In this paper, we present a mathematical programming model to minimise the deployment cost by placing a minimum number of sensors at optimal locations. The problem is modelled by integer linear programming considering the sensing capabilities of both the mobile phones and wireless sensors. We evaluated the performance of our solution in terms of sensing quality, number of required sensors, and computation time. The results demonstrate that our approach satisfies the required sensing quality with optimal number of sensors in small sensing fields. It achieves near optimal solution with low computation time for large sensing fields. © 2012 IEEE.