Probabilistic coverage map for mobile sensor networks

Mobile sensor has enabled many new applications in wireless sensor networks where coverage is one of the most important problems to support those applications. Previous research works of coverage issue mainly focus on the static sensor network, which can not handle the significant challenge brought by the node mobility. In this paper, we consider the coverage problem in mobile sensor networks under a very general framework, in which all the sensors are moving all the time with any specified movement model. We propose a scheme that can provide a Real-time Coverage-Map According to Probability (RC- MAP) of the mobile sensor networks. By introducing probability into coverage, RC-MAP provides three different types of coverage map in real-time, including probability to be covered, expected number of sensors to cover, and expected waiting time before being covered. Extensive simulation results demonstrate the high accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed scheme.