On the Minimum Quantity of Mobile Sensor Nodes for Full Coverage in Hybrid WSN

A main challenge in deploying wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is determining the minimum quantity of sensor nodes required to fully cover the region of interest while avoiding coverage holes. This study proposes a method to compute the number of nodes needed to monitor a circular region and a distributed control strategy based on circular formations to move dynamic agents to their desired positions. The method addresses the coverage problem, ensuring that each point in the monitored region is detected without losing connectivity. In addition, the study compares this approach with a sensor node allocation method based on Voronoi diagrams, highlighting the need for an algorithm that computes the desired positions of the agents to provide guaranteed flawless coverage; the proposed method achieves this by obtaining the desired final positions. The hybrid WSN architecture, together with the proposed method, achieves full coverage efficiently and better utilizes the detection circumference of sensors compared to traditional rectangular monitoring regions.