An Average Distance Based Self-Relocation and Self-Healing Algorithm for Mobile Sensor Networks

The sensing coverage of a wireless sensor network is an important measure of the quality of service. It is desirable to develop energy efficient methods for relocating mobile sensors in order to achieve optimum sensing coverage. This paper introduces an average distance based self-relocation and self-healing algorithm for randomly deployed mobile sensor networks. No geo-location or relative location information is needed by this algorithm thereby no hardware such as GPS is required. The tradeoff is that sensors need to move longer distance in order to achieve certain coverage. Simulations are conducted in order to evaluate the proposed relocation and self-healing algorithms. An average of 94% coverage is achieved in the cases that we are examined with or without obstacles.