Surface Coverage Algorithm in Directional Sensor Networks for Three-Dimensional Complex Terrains

Coverage is an important issue in the area of wireless sensor networks, which reflects the monitoring quality of the sensor networks in scenes. Most sensor coverage research focuses on the ideal two-dimensional (2-D) plane and full three-dimensional (3-D) space. However, in many real-world applications, the target field is a 3-D complex surface, which makes conventional methods unsuitable. In this paper, we study the coverage problem in directional sensor networks for complex 3-D terrains, and design a new surface coverage algorithm. Based on a 3-D directional sensing model of nodes, this algorithm employs grid division, simulated annealing, and local optimum ideas to improve the area coverage ratio by optimizing the position coordinates and the deviation angles of the nodes, which results in coverage enhancement for complex 3-D terrains. We also conduct extensive simulations to evaluate the performance of our algorithms.