Robust coverage under uncertainty in wireless sensor networks

Uncertainty in sensor locations is a norm in both planned and unplanned deployments. Even carefully positioned in the deployment phase, sensors may be displaced due to environmental or human factors during the course of operation. In this paper, we present a systematic study of the impact of location uncertainty on the coverage properties of wireless sensor networks. The uncertainty is modeled as disks of possibly different radius around the nominal positions. We introduce the concept of order-k (k ≥ 1) max Voronoi Diagram (VD) and devise an efficient polynomial algorithm to construct order-k VDs. Order-k max VD is critical in determining the minimum sensing radius needed to ensure worst-case k-coverage, call k-exposure. Simulation studies validate the correctness of the proposed algorithms and demonstrate their superiority over a naive approach.