Minimizing the number of sensors moved on line barriers

We study the problem of achieving maximum barrier coverage by sensors on a barrier modeled by a line segment, by moving the minimum possible number of sensors, initially placed at arbitrary positions on the line containing the barrier. We consider several cases based on whether or not complete coverage is possible, and whether non-contiguous coverage is allowed in the case when complete coverage is impossible. When the sensors have unequal transmission ranges, we show that the problem of finding a minimum-sized subset of sensors to move in order to achieve maximum contiguous or non-contiguous coverage on a finite line segment barrier is NP-complete. In contrast, if the sensors all have the same range, we give efficient algorithms to achieve maximum contiguous as well as non-contiguous coverage. For some cases, we reduce the problem to finding a maximum-hop path of a certain minimum (maximum) weight on a related graph, and solve it using dynamic programming.