A novel model for representing a plane target and finding the worst-case coverage in wireless sensor network based on Clifford algebra

Abstract

Wireless ad hoc sensor networks have recently emerged as a premier research topic. They have great long-term economic potential and ability to transform our lives and pose many new system building challenges. Sensor networks also pose a number of new conceptual and optimization problems. Most of researches in wireless sensor networks are focused in obtaining better target coverage in order to reduce energy and cost of the network. The problem of planar target analysis is one of the crucial problems that should be considered while studying coverage problem of sensor networks. By combining computational geometry and graph theoretic techniques, specifically the Voronoi diagram and graph search algorithms, this paper introduces a novel sensor network coverage model that deals with plane target problem based on Clifford algebra which is a powerful tool that is coordinate free. Also, the calculations of the node coverage rate for the plane target in the sensor network using Clifford algebra are presented. Then, the maximum clearance path (worst-case coverage) of the sensor network for a plane target is proposed. The optimality and reliability of the proposed algorithm have been proved using simulation. Also, a comparison between the breach weight of the point target and the plane target is provided.