Shadowing Effects and Edge Effect on Sensing Coverage for Wireless Sensor Networks

Sensing coverage is defined as the ratio of the sensible area to the entire desired area. It is one of the critical measures of performance or service quality offered by a sensor network. In previous studies, the sensing range of a node is generally assumed to be a deterministic value in all directions. In realistic environments, the sensing range of a node is not a constant because of shadowing effects. Recent studies are focused on the sensing coverage for WSNs in shadowed environments. But they ignore the edge effect which will induce an overestimation on the sensing coverage. The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of the shadowing effects and edge effect on the sensing coverage. The theoretical formulations for the sensing coverage are provided. Furthermore, the multiple-sensing coverage is studied as well. Our simulation results indicate the correctness of our analytical model.