Lake monitoring sensors distribution with low energy consumption

Lake monitoring sensors are important for maintaining the safe environment around the lake. Those sensors float on a lake and have to carry their own battery. However, the limited battery life in sensors is a critical problem, because it affects the operation time of the system. In this paper, we address the lake monitoring sensors distribution under water flow field in a lake. We propose a controller that control the group distribution by using the centroid and the variance of the group as control parameters. The proposed controller considers the existing flow field and uses it in the calculation process. This action provides lower energy consumption by the help of the flow field. Results from the proposed controller is compared with the results from a simple distribution method, which is performed by controlling positions of the sensors and using a simple feedback control and compared with results from a modified consensus controller. With a distribution method that requires less energy, the sensors can reach their objective with sufficient amount of energy that would allow a greater overall operating time of the monitoring system, which would in turn result in higher monitoring system efficiency.