Generic 3-D Routing Protocols in Sensing-Covering Regions

In recent years, sensor networks have been proposed to improve the detection level of natural disasters (e.g. volcanoes, tornadoes, tsunamis). However, this technology has several issues that need to be improved. We, therefore in this paper, focus on two main issues: coverage and routing. For coverage problem, we introduce a new approach for obtaining a static covered network in 3-D environment. This technique is referred to as the chipset coverage model. This would be accomplished by using a small number of sensor nodes in order to save up some energy. For routing issue, we propose several new position-based routing protocols which are the 3-D sensing spheres close to the line routing algorithm (3-D SSL), the 3-D smallest angle to the line routing algorithm (3-D SAL), and the 3-D SSL:SAL routing protocols. We show that the 3-D SAL and the 3-D SSL:SAL routing protocols guarantee the delivery of packets. In our simulation, we show that the 3-D SSL:SAL protocol has similar performance in terms of network (hop) dilation and routing delay to these for an existing 3-D progress-based routing protocol. Moreover, the 3-D SSL:SAL and the 3-D SAL routing protocols outperform an existing 3-D progress-based routing protocol in terms of Euclidean dilation. Thus, the new protocols reduce the energy consumption of the nodes and, therefore, prolong the life of the network.