A Triangular Selection Path Planning Method with Dead Reckoning System for Wireless Mobile Sensor Mote

Leveraging numerous integrated sensing devices placed close to the actual monitoring environments, the information that such networks can provide is more accurate and richer than the information provided with a system of few, expensive sensing devices. The general design of such sensor node is motionless, but the mobile sensor is useful in some aspects. Nodes can be distributed at any corner easily, move to a specific emergent area, or replace the power exhausted nodes. Mobile sensor nodes can increase the interaction between user and system. Moreover, the ability of auto-recharging for mobile sensor nodes can solve the powerlessness problem for sensor network. We had designed a mobile sensor node with compass to correct the direction of movement; six IR sensors let mobile nodes with the ability of obstacle avoidance. We propose an algorithm called triangular selection path planning (TSPP) method, and along with the dead-reckoning (DR) algorithm to merge heading readings from compass and two encoders mounted on the wheels to compute the dead-reckoned location estimation. With these technologies, our mobile sensor node can know their own position accurately and achieve the destination efficiently.