Efficient camera selection for maximized target coverage in underwater acoustic sensor networks

In addition to sensors, cameras have started to be deployed in underwater acoustic sensor networks (UWASNs) for improved monitoring. However, since cameras already consume a lot of energy, they are kept in sleep mode most of the time and only activated when sensors detect a target. Due to random deployment and lack of cameras, there may not be any cameras within the vicinity of a detected target. A possible solution to this problem is to relocate remote cameras via vertical movements to certain locations to capture the target. In this paper, we propose a distributed camera selection and relocation scheme in UWASNs to maximize the coverage of the detected targets with the least vertical movement of cameras. The problem is modeled as a weighted set covering problem and solved using a greedy heuristic. The performance of the proposed approach is assessed through extensive simulations under a variety of conditions.