Clustering-Based Minimum Energy Wireless m-Connected k-Covered Sensor Networks

Duty-cycling is an appealing solution for energy savings in densely deployed, energy-constrained

wireless sensor networks

(WSNs). Indeed, several applications, such as intruder detection and tracking, require the design of

k

-covered WSNs, which are densely in nature and where each location in a monitored field is

covered

(or

sensed

) by at least

k

active sensors. With duty-cycling, sensors can be turned

on

or

off

according to a scheduling protocol, thus reducing the number of active sensors required to

k

-cover a field and helping all sensors deplete their energy slowly and uniformly. In this paper, we propose a duty-cycling framework, called

clustered randomized m-connected k-coverage

(CRACC

mk

), for

k

-coverage of a sensor field. We present two protocols using CRACC

mk

, namely T-CRACC

mk

and D-CRACC

mk

, which differ by their degree of granularity of network clustering. We prove that the CRACC

mk

protocols are minimum energy

m

-connected

k

-coverage protocols in that each deploys a minimum number of active sensors to

k

-cover a sensor field and that

k

-coverage implies

m

-connectivity between all active sensors, with

m

being larger than

k

. We enhance the practicality of the CRACC

mk

protocols by relaxing some widely used assumptions for

k

-coverage. Simulation results show that the CRACC

mk

protocols outperform existing

k

-coverage protocols for WSNs.