On a Mobile Sensor Control Method for Uniform Sensing in Sparse Sensor Networks

Recent advance in robotics technology has led to an increasing interest in mobile sensor networks that are constructed by sensor nodes with a moving facility (mobile sensors). Until now, we have proposed an effective mobile sensor control method, named DATFM (Data Acquisition and Transmission with Fixed and Mobile Node), for sparse sensor networks. DATFM achieves the effective data acquisition in a sparse network by accumulating data on fixed nodes and then transmitting them via a communication route constructed by multiple mobile sensors. In this paper, we propose DATFM/DA (DATFM with area Dividing and node deployment Adjusting) as an extension of DATFM to uniformize the amount of acquired data in the whole area. DATFM/DA divides the target area into several regions and adjusts the number of mobile sensors deployed in each region. Furthermore, we conduct simulation experiments to evaluate the performance of DATFM/DA.