Environment Learning-Based Coverage Maximization With Connectivity Constraints in Mobile Sensor Networks

This paper takes into consideration the problems related to monitoring a phenomenon of interest in an unknown and open environment using multiple mobile sensor (MS) nodes. We propose an environment learning-based phenomenon monitoring system that iteratively learns about the environment and relocates MS nodes to optimal positions, where MS nodes can attain a high weighted sensing coverage and maintain network connectivity. In this paper, finding optimal positions for MS nodes is defined as the connectivity-constrained coverage maximization problem. An integer linear programming optimization formulation is proposed to find the solution. We also propose three heuristics algorithms to efficiently solve the connectivity-constrained coverage maximization problem. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms outperform other approaches in terms of the weighted coverage efficiency and energy efficiency.