Operations Research Transactions ›› 2019, Vol. 23 ›› Issue (4): 155-164.doi: 10.15960/j.cnki.issn.1007-6093.2019.04.014

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Algorithms for Max-Value Path Sweep Coverage in Mobile Sensor Networks

HUANG Peihuang1,*, ZHU Wenxing2   

  1. 1. College of Physics and Information Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China;
    2. College of Mathematics and Computer Science, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China
  • Received:2017-12-27 Published:2019-12-04

Abstract: Sweep coverage is an important covering technique in nowaday wireless sensor networks, which deploys mobile sensors to periodically monitor a set of points of interest (POIs), providing a more cost-efficient method to monitor POIs comparing to the traditional covering methods. This paper investigates the Max-Value Sweep Coverage problem on Path (MVSCP), which is to cover a set of POIs over a path using mobile sensors, such that the value sum of the covered POIs attains maximum. This paper first presents an approximation algorithm based on linear programming (LP) randomized rounding technique, in which the problem is first relaxed as a linear program whose fractional optimum solution is then rounded to a solution to MVSCP. The approximation algorithm is with a runtime O(mn3.5L) and an approximation ratio1-1/e. Then, extending the greedy algorithm for Set Covering, the paper presents an algorithm with a runtime O(m2n2), based on the main idea of repeatly picking the sensor with maximum covered value per unit patrolling range. To reduce the runtime, this paper further improves the runtime of the algorithm to O(m log m+mn2)based on the problem structure of MVSCP. At last, the paper evaluates the practical performance of the proposed algorithms by simulation experiments. The results show that the LP-randomized rounding algorithm is with a much better runtime that is one percent of the exact algorithm based on integral linear programs, but only compromising with slightly lower practical performance. Although without a provably approximation ratio, the improved greedy algorithm has a practical performance as good as the LP-randomized algorithm, while it is with least runtime among all the three algorithms.

Key words: sweep coverage, linear programming, greedy algorithm, mobile sensor

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