A novel area coverage protocol based on particle swarm optimization algorithm for wireless sensor networks

One major problem in the area of sensor networks is the coverage problem. The coverage problem deals with the ability of the network to cover a certain area or some certain events. In this paper, we propose an Area Coverage protocol based on Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm (PSOAC) to deal with the problem of area coverage in wireless sensor networks with sparse deployment. In this protocol, proper sensing radius can be determined using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm. The proposed protocol is able to provide the full coverage in networks with low densities. Moreover, with increasing nodes density, the proposed protocol decreases both nodes sensing radius and energy consumption, thus the proposed protocol maintains more balance in using nodes energy prolongs the network lifetime. We simulate our protocol and simulation results show high efficiency of it. Keywords: Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm, Wireless sensor networks, Area coverage, Adjusting sensing radius, Energy consumption;