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Young Researchers Club, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 3 August 2012
Received in revised form 1 February 2013
Accepted 9 March 2013
Available online 19 March 2013
Keywords:
Area coverage
Minimum weight CDS
Degree-constrained CDS
WSN
Learning automata
a b s t r a c t
The connected dominating set (CDS) concept has recently emerged as a promising
approach to the area coverage in wireless sensor network (WSN). However, the major
problem affecting the performance of the existing CDS-based coverage protocols is that
they aim at maximizing the number of sleep nodes to save more energy. This places a
heavy load on the active sensors (dominators) for handling a large number of neighbors.
The rapid exhaustion of the active sensors may disconnect the network topology and leave
the area uncovered. Therefore, to make a good trade-off between the network connectivity,
coverage, and lifetime, a proper number of sensors must be activated. This paper presents a
degree-constrained minimum-weight extension of the CDS problem called DCDS to model
the area coverage in WSNs. The proper choice of the degree-constraint of DCDS balances
the network load on the active sensors and signicantly improves the network coverage
and lifetime. A learning automata-based heuristic named as LAEEC is proposed for nding
a near optimal solution to the proxy equivalent DCDS problem in WSN. The computational
complexity of the proposed algorithm to nd a
1
1
optimal solution of the area coverage
problem is approximated. Several simulation experiments are conducted to show the supe-
riority of the proposed area coverage protocol over the existing CDS-based methods in
terms of the control message overhead, percentage of covered area, residual energy, num-
ber of active nodes (CDS size), and network lifetime.
2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a multi-hop, infra-
structureless, and self-organized network comprising a
group of small and power-constrained sensors deployed
over a vast region for different purposes such as environ-
ment monitoring, object or target tracking, industry auto-
mation and control, and etc. [1,2]. Although the recent
advances in sensor technology, micro-electromechanical
systems, and wireless communications technology have
greatly promoted the emergence of modern WSNs, they
continue to be networks with constrained resources in
terms of memory, power supply, and processing power
[35]. Due to the severe resource limitations in WSNs, cov-
erage is the most fundamental and challenging issue of
these networks focusing on how well the sensors cover
the monitoring region [68]. WSN coverage problem aims
to minimize the number of sensor nodes to be activated,
while maintaining the full coverage of the monitoring area
[9]. Besides the WSN, coverage is a well-known classic
problem in computational geometry too. The art gallery
problem [10] in which the cameras are located to monitor
every point in the art gallery, and the ocean area coverage
problem [11] in which the satellites are placed in the orbit
to provide the maximum ocean monitoring also deal with
the coverage problem [9].
Depending on the subject is covered, the coverage prob-
lem can be classied as area coverage [12,13], barrier (or
path) coverage [1416], and target (or point) coverage
[13,17]. The area coverage deals with the problem of cov-
ering all the points within the monitoring area. The area
1570-8705/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adhoc.2013.03.002
_
_
_
where E
c+
denotes the energy of optimal degree-con-
strained CDS c
+
; min
\n
j
c
i
E
n
j
denotes the energy of de-
gree-constrained CDS c
i
subject to constraint d. Energy of
a degree-constrained CDS is dened as the residual energy
level of the most energetic active sensor.
3.2. Degree-constrained CDS-based area coverage algorithm
In this section, a fully distributed learning automata-
based algorithm is proposed for solving the area coverage
problem in WSN by nding a near optimal solution to the
degree-constrained minimum-weight CDS problem. In this
algorithm, a group of learning automata, named as GoL, is
constituted by equipping each sensor node n
i
with a vari-
able action-set learning automaton A
i
. Duple GoL is dened
as A(k), a(k)), where A(k) = A
i
[\n
i
N(k) denotes the set
of learning automata assigned to the sensor nodes, and
a(k) = {a
i
["A
i
} denotes the set of actions that can be taken
by each learning automaton A
i
. Due to the frequent topol-
ogy changes in WSN, N; L, and E are time-variable parame-
ters. In this paper, these parameters are shown as N(k); L(k),
and E(k) for each instant k. Let a
i
denotes the set of actions
that can be taken by learning automaton A
i
A(k). Each
automaton A
i
chooses the communication links incident
at the corresponding node n
i
as its actions. That is,
a
i
(k) = a
j
i
(k)
\l
(n
i
;n
j
)
L(k)
_ _
. GoL is isomorphic to the net-
work topology graph, where the set of learning automata
corresponds to the set of sensor nodes and the action-set
corresponds to the set of communications links. Therefore,
action-set a
i
(k) is time-variable and its number of actions
may change at each instant k. Learning automaton is a
probabilistic learning tool that selects its actions according
to an action probability vector (APV) at random. APV is the
main component of a learning automaton that must be kept
up-to-date. The action probability vector of learning
automaton A
i
is dened as p
i
(k) = p
j
i
(k)
\a
j
i
(k) a
i
(k)
_ _
,
where p
j
i
(k) denotes the choice probability of action a
j
i
at
stage k. In this algorithm, the APV of each learning autom-
aton A
i
is set to the energy level of its neighboring nodes ini-
tially. Let e
n
i
(k) =
\l
(n
i
;n
j
)
L(k)
E
n
j
(k) denotes the total energy
level of the neighbors of sensor n
i
at stage k. Therefore, the
probability with which sensor n
i
selects sensor n
j
(i.e., link
l
(n
i
;n
j
)
) is dened as p
j
i
(k) =
En
j
(k)
en
i
(k)
at stage k. This activates
the sensor having the maximum energy level (in each
neighborhood) to cover the sensor eld.
1658 J. Akbari Torkestani / Ad Hoc Networks 11 (2013) 16551666
Let us assume that the sink node n
i
starts the coverage
process. As mentioned earlier, LAEEC is a fully distributed
algorithm that is run at each sensor node independently.
Flowchart of the proposed coverage procedure running at
sensor node n
i
is shown in Fig. 1. The node that is running
the algorithm is called the current node. At each instant k,
each current node n
i
discovers its neighbors and forms its
action-set by sending an ASF (action-set formation) mes-
sage. Each node that receives the ASF message replies it.
The reply message includes the residual energy level of
the node. Current node n
i
forms its action-set based on
the received replies. Due to the network topology changes,
one node may leave (or join to) the other node at each
stage. If link l
(n
i
;n
j
)
breaks at stage k + 1, its corresponding
action (i.e., a
j
i
) must be removed from the action-set of
automaton A
i
(or action a
i
j
from automaton A
j
). Moreover,
the choice probability of the other actions (e.g., a
j
/
i
) must
be updated as p
j
/
i
(k 1) = p
j
/
i
(k) 1 p
j
i
(k)=1 p
j
i
(k)
_ _ _ _
in
automaton A
i
. When a new link l
(n
i
;n
j
)
is established at stage
k + 1, the choice probability of the new action is initialized
to 1/[a
i
(k + 1)[, and that of the other actions is updated as
p
j
/
i
(k 1) = p
j
/
i
(k) [[[a
i
(k 1)[ 1[=[a
i
(k 1)[[.
Let c
k
denotes the degree-constrained CDS that is con-
structed at stage k. Let c
/
k
be the set of sensor nodes cov-
ered by c
k
(or set of dominatees). c
k
is initially set to n
i
,
and c
/
k
is initialized to n
i
and its one-hop neighbors. E
c
k
is
initialized to E
n
i
. Let d
k
denotes the average degree of c
k
.
d
k
is dened (and updated) as
\n
i
c
k
D
i
(k)
_ _
=[c
k
[ at each
stage k, where D
i
(k) denotes the degree of node n
i
at stage
k. As shown in Fig. 1, current node n
i
selects one of its ac-
tions at random. Let us assume that action a
j
i
is selected by
node n
i
. Sensor n
i
adds sensor n
j
(corresponding to selected
action a
j
i
) to the constrained CDS c
k
and updates d
k
. Energy
of c
k
(i.e., E
c
k
) is set to minE
n
j
; E
c
k
. e
n
i
(k) = e
n
i
(k)=D
i
(k) de-
notes the average energy level of the neighbors of node n
i
at stage k. Node n
i
compares the residual energy of sensor
node n
j
with average energy level e
n
i
(k), and average de-
gree d
k
with degree-constraint d. Then, n
i
updates the
internal state of its automaton according to the following
updating rules. If the residual energy level of the node se-
lected by n
i
is higher than the average energy level of the
neighbors of n
i
(i.e., if n
j
is the most energetic neighbor of
n
i
) and d
k
does not exceed degree-constraint d, learning
automaton A
i
rewards the selected action a
j
i
by Eq. (1). If
the energy level of selected node n
j
is lower than the aver-
age energy level e
n
i
(k), and the average degree d
k
is larger
than degree-constraint d
k
, learning automaton A
i
penalizes
the selected action a
j
i
by Eq. (2). Otherwise, the APV of A
i
remains unchanged.
After learning automaton A
i
updates its APV, current
node n
i
sends an ACT (activation) message including de-
gree-constrained CDS c
k
, dominatee set c
/
k
, average degree
d
k
, and CDS energy level E
c
k
to activate the selected sensor
node n
j
. Sensor n
j
checks to see if its ID number is equal to
the receiver ID, as soon as it receives an ACT message. If so,
it adds the IDs of its one-hop neighbors to c
/
k
. If c
/
k
includes
all the network nodes (i.e., if the constructed CDS covers all
the points within the sensor eld), the current iteration, k,
of the coverage process is over. Otherwise, node n
j
changes
its state to the current node and does the same operations
as node n
i
did. Sensor node n
i
in which the coverage pro-
cess completes, broadcasts a SLP (sleep) message within
the network through backbone c
k
. This message only in-
cludes degree-constrained CDS c
k
and energy level E
c
k
.
Each receiving sensor node n
i
goes to the sleep mode if it
does not nd its ID in c
k
. Otherwise, it goes to the active
mode for sensing the area. The sensor network composed
of the active nodes covers the monitoring area until the
residual energy of an active sensor node falls down a pre-
dened threshold T
n
i
or one or more active sensor nodes
fail. The active node that nds its residual energy level
lower than the energy threshold T
n
i
, and the sensor node
that detects the failure of an active node are responsible
for initiating a new coverage process.
Fig. 1. Flowchart of the proposed area coverage procedure running at sensor node n
i
at stage k.
J. Akbari Torkestani / Ad Hoc Networks 11 (2013) 16551666 1659
4. Complexity analysis and convergence results
In this section, the computational complexity of the
proposed area coverage algorithm, LAEEC, is analyzed. To
do so, an upper bound (Lemma 1) and a lower bound (Lem-
ma 2) on the number of iterations of the algorithm for nd-
ing a
1
1
_ _
optimal action at each node n
i
(i.e., learning
automaton A
i
) is approximated, where is the error rate.
Then, it is shown (in Theorem 1) that the time required
for nding a
1
1
_ _
optimal solution to the area coverage
problem is conned between the estimated lower and
upper bounds. Finally, it is proved (in Theorem 2) that
the convergence time of LAEEC to a
1
1
_ _
optimal area cov-
erage (i.e.,
1
1
c
+
) is bounded to the convergence time of the
network node with the maximum degree.
Theorem 1. Let opt
i
denotes the optimal action that can be
chosen by learning automaton A
i
. If A
i
updates its action
probability vector according to LAEEC, the time required for
nding a
1
1
_ _
opt
i
at node n
i
is
!
E
n+
(k)
e
n
i
(k)
_ _
6 T
i
6 !
E
n+
(k)
e
n
i
(k)
(1 a)
D
i
1
_ _
; (4)
where
!(k) =
2
1 k
[c+[
log
[c+[(1k)
1a
; (5)
(0, 1) is the error rate, a denotes the learning rate of the
algorithm, [c
+
[ denotes the cardinality of the optimal degree-
constrained CDS, n
[c+[(1k)
1a
where k Pp
+
i
(1 a)
D
i
1
.
Proof. Lemma 1 aims at computing the worst case running
time of the proposed algorithm. At each node n
i
, the worst
case occurs if the optimal sensor node n
is
chosen for the rst time by node n
i
. Since the reinforce-
ment scheme by which the proposed algorithm updates
the probability vectors is L
RI
, the conditional expectation
of q
+
i
(k) (i.e., the choice probability of the optimal node at
stage k of the growing phase) remains unchanged when
the other nodes are selected. It increases only when the
optimal node is selected. Therefore, during the growing
phase, the changes in the conditional expectation of q
+
i
(k)
is always non-negative and as follows
q
+
i
(1) =q
+
i
a 1q
+
i
_ _
q
+
i
(2) =q
+
i
(1) a 1q
+
i
(1)
_ _
=q
+
i
(1) (1a) a
.
.
.
q
+
i
(k1) =q
+
i
(k2) a 1q
+
i
(k2)
_ _
=q
+
i
(k 2) (1a) a
q
+
i
(k) =q
+
i
(k 1) a 1q
+
i
(k 1)
_ _
=q
+
i
(k1) (1a) a
(7)
where k denotes the number of times n
i
selects the optimal
node n
k1
i=0
(1 a)
i
(10)
The second term on the right hand side of Eq. (10) is a
geometric series that sums up to a
1(1a)
k
1(1a)
_ _
, where
[1 a[ < 1. Since the learning rate a (0, 1), we have
q
+
i
(k) = q
+
i
(1 a)
k
a
1 (1 a)
k
1 (1 a)
_ _
(11)
and
q
+
i
(k) = q
+
i
(1 a)
k
1 (1 a)
k
(12)
From Eqs. (8) and (12), we have
q
+
i
(1 a)
k
1 (1 a)
k
= 1
[c
+
[
(13)
and
(1 a)
k
=
[c
+
[ 1 q
+
i
_ _ (14)
Taking log
1a
of both sides of Eq. (14), we derive
k = log
[c+[ 1q
+
i
( )
1a
(15)
As mentioned earlier, during the growing phase, q
+
i
remains unchanged when the other nodes are penalized.
Therefore, k does not include the number of times the
other nodes are selected. Let q
+
i
be the choice probability
of the optimal node at the beginning of the growing phase.
After k iterations q
+
i
reaches 1 . On the other hand, the
choice probability of all the other nodes is initially 1 q
+
i
and reaches after the same number of iterations. There-
fore, the number of times the other nodes are selected,
before the stop condition given in Eq. (8) is met, is
1 q
+
i
[c+[
1 q
+
i
[c+[
k (16)
Let / denotes the total number of iterations required to
satisfy the stop condition. From Eq. (16) we have
/ =
2
1 q
+
i
[c+[
k
By substituting k from Eq. (15) we have
/ =
2
1 q
+
i
[c+[
log
[c+[ 1q
+
i
( )
1a
(17)
From Inequality (7) and Eq. (17), it is concluded that the
time complexity of the LAEEC for nding a
1
1
opt
i
is less
than
2
1 q
+
i
[c+[
log
[c+[ 1q
+
i
( )
1a
(18)
where q
+
i
Pp
+
i
(1 a)
D
i
1
, and hence the proof of Lemma
1. h
Lemma 2. If the action probability vector p
i
(of each autom-
aton A
i
) is updated according to the updating rules of LAEEC,
the lower bound to the running time of LAEEC for nding a
1
1
opt
i
is greater than
2
1 p
+
i
[c+[
log
[c+[ 1p
+
i
( )
1a
:
Proof. Lemma 2 considers the running time of the pro-
posed algorithm in the best case, when n
i
selects the opti-
mal node n
[c+[ 1q
+
i
( )
1a
; (19)
where q
+
i
= p
+
i
, which completes the proof of Lemma 2. h
From Inequalities (18) and (19), it can be concluded that
2
1 q
+
i
[c+[
log
[c+[ 1q
+
i
( )
1a
6 T
i
6
2
1 q
+
i
[c+[
log
[c+[ 1q
+
i
( )
1a
;
where q
+
i
Pp
+
i
(1 a)
D
i
1
.
As described in Section 3, for each action a
j
i
, the initial
probability p
j
i
is set to
En
j
(k)
en
i
(k)
, where e
n
i
(k) =
(n
i
;n
j
)L(k)
E
n
j
(k). Therefore, the initial probability p
+
i
is set to
En+
(k)
en
i
(k)
.
Therefore, we have
!
E
n+
(k)
e
n
i
(k)
_ _
6 T
i
6 !
E
n+
(k)
e
n
i
(k)
(1 a)
D
i
1
_ _
;
where
!(k) =
2
1 k
[c+[
log
[c+[(1k)
1a
;
which completes the proof of the theorem.
Theorem 2. Let n
/
denotes the network node with the
maximum degree D. The time complexity of the proposed
algorithm for nding a
1
1
optimal solution to the coverage
problem is
!
E
n+
(k)
e
n
/
(k)
_ _
6 T 6 !
E
n+
(k)
e
n
/
(k)
(1 a)
D1
_ _
;
where
!(k) =
2
1 k
[c+[
log
[c+[(1k)
1a
Proof. As mentioned earlier, the proposed algorithm is
independently run at each node and each leaning automa-
ton locally updates its internal state to converge to the
optimal action. Therefore, node n
/
requires the maximum
number of iterations for nding
1
1
optimal action of
J. Akbari Torkestani / Ad Hoc Networks 11 (2013) 16551666 1661
learning automaton A
/
. On the other hand, from Lemmas
1 and 2, the running time of the proposed algorithm for
nding
1
1
optimal coverage is limited by the upper bound
and lower bound on the running time of the algorithm for
the node with the maximum degree D. Therefore, it is con-
cluded that the time taken by the proposed algorithm for
nding a
1
1
optimal coverage is
!
E
n+
(k)
e
n
/
(k)
_ _
6 T 6 !
E
n+
(k)
e
n
/
(k)
(1 a)
D1
_ _
;
where!(k) =
2
1k
[c+[
log
[c+[(1k)
1a
, that completes the proof of
Theorem 2. h
5. Experiments
In this section, several simulation experiments are
conducted to show the performance of the proposed
CDS-based area coverage algorithm. The results of the
proposed method are compared with those of three
CDS-based energy efcient area coverage protocol A3
[24], A3CovLite [6], and A1 [4] in terms of control mes-
sage overhead, percentage of covered area, residual en-
ergy, number of active nodes (CDS size), and network
lifetime. In these experiments, the wireless sensor net-
work is setup as follows. The wireless sensor nodes are
uniformly and randomly distributed within a square sen-
sor deployment area of size 150(m) 150(m) at random.
The number of sensor nodes ranges from 50 to 250 with
increment step 50. The radio transmission range of each
sensor node is set to 20(m), and the sensing range of each
node is set to 10(m). The size of each data packet is 100
bytes. The simulation time of each experiment is 1500
(s). Each sensor node has an omnidirectional antenna
with a xed radio propagation range. IEEE 802.11 [28]
(Distributed Coordination Function) with CSMA/CA (Car-
rier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance) is used
as the medium access control protocol, and two ray
ground as the radio propagation model. The maximum
energy level of each sensor node is 2.0(J), and the initial
energy level the sensors is randomly selected from the
uniform distribution dened over interval [1.5(J), 2.0(J)].
The energy model presented by Heinzelman et al. [29]
is used for estimating the amount of energy consumption.
In this energy model that is based on the rst order radio
model, each sensor node consumes 50
nJ
bit
_ _
to run the
transmitter or the receiver circuitry. Each sensor node
also consumes 100
pJ
bit
=m
2
_ _
for handling the transmit
amplier. Therefore, the energy amount required for
receiving a k-bit data packet is estimated as
k(bit) 50
nJ
bit
_ _ _ _
= 50k(nJ)
The energy amount that is consumed to transmit a mes-
sage of length k to a destination node located x(m) far from
the transmitter is computed as
k(bit) 50
nJ
bit
_ _ _ _
k(bit) 100
pJ
bit
_
m
2
_ _ _ _
x
2
(m
2
)
= 50k(nJ) 100 kx
2
(pJ)
In these experiments, the proposed area coverage algo-
rithm, LAEEC, is congured as follows. The environment
in which the learning automata perform is assumed to be
P-model. Each learning automaton updates its action prob-
ability vector according to reinforcement scheme L
RI
. In
these experiments, LAEEC is calibrated by tuning degree-
constraint d and learning rate a as follows. The covered
area and network lifetime are measured, where degree-
constraint d changes from 2 to 15. The obtained results
show that the best trade-off between the covered area
and network lifetime is made when degree-constraint d
is set to 7. The same experiment is conducted to adjust
the learning rate, where a changes from 0.05 to 0.5. The re-
sults show that LAEEC has the best performance when the
learning rate is set to 0.15. In The energy threshold T
n
i
is
dened as 0:5 E
c
k
. That is, a new coverage process initiates
when the energy level E
c
k
falls to 50% of its initial value. All
timeouts are set to 100 ms. In class A3, the weights are set
as follows: W
E
denoting the weight for the remaining en-
ergy in the node is set to 0.5, and W
D
denoting the weight
for the distance from the parent node is set to 0.5 too,
where W
D
+ W
E
= 1. For A3-based protocols, the timers
are set as t
0
= 1.5, t
1
= 30.0, t
2
= 15.0, and t
3
= 60.0.
5.1. Number of active nodes
This metric is dened as the average number of nodes
that are activated to cover the sensor eld (i.e., the average
CDS size). This metric implicitly shows the number of
dominators in the CDS. The residual energy of the network
is inversely proportional to the number of active nodes.
Therefore, the energy-efcient protocols try to minimize
the number of active nodes. Fig. 2 shows the number of ac-
tive nodes (dominators in CDS) against the total number of
network nodes. From the results shown in this gure it can
be seen that A3 has the minimum number of active nodes
as compared to the other protocols. This is because A3
algorithm uses a selection metric giving the priority to
the farther nodes from the parent having higher energy le-
vel. This method considerably reduces the CDS size. As
shown in Fig. 3, this results in the lower coverage rate of
A3. A3CovLite uses extra active nodes to cover the points
of the sensor eld leaved uncovered in A3. So, it requires
more active nodes than A3. Though A1 provides a higher
Fig. 2. The number of active nodes vs. the total number of network nodes.
1662 J. Akbari Torkestani / Ad Hoc Networks 11 (2013) 16551666
coverage rate than A3 and A3CovLite, it suffers from the
many redundant active nodes. This is due to the fact that
A1 forms the reduced topology without any metric desired
for the reduction in the size of the CDS. From the results
shown in Fig. 2, it can be seen that the number of active
nodes in LAEEC is larger than that of A3-based approaches
and smaller than that of A1. In LAEEC, the number of active
nodes is controlled by degree-constraint d. Larger values of
d reduces the number of active nodes and smaller values of
d leads to very large CDS.
5.2. Covered area
This metric shows the percentage of the sensing area
that is covered by the active sensor nodes. The coverage
percentage is a measure of the quality of service (QoS) of
the coverage protocol. Fig. 3 shows the percentage of the
sensor eld covered by the selected active nodes in differ-
ent algorithms as a function of the network size. From the
results shown in this gure, it can be seen that the covered
area signicantly increases as the network density (i.e., the
number of nodes in the network) increases. This is because
the number of scattered nodes within the simulation area
considerably exceeds the number of active nodes required
in optimal deployment. The obtained results depicted in
Fig. 3 also show that A3 provides the minimum area cover-
age as compared to the other protocols. This is due to the
fact that A3 sends a sleep message to the nodes within
the communication area of the other nodes in the reduced
tree topology. This may cause some points of the area re-
main uncovered when the sensing range is smaller than
the communication range. A3CovLite solves the coverage
problem with A3 by sending a node to the sleep mode if
it is sensing-covered by another active node. That is why,
the A3CovLite has a higher rate of area coverage than A3.
Comparing the results shown in Fig. 3, it is observed that
the proposed area coverage protocol LAEEC always covers
the whole monitoring area. This is because, LAEEC rst
constructs a degree-constrained CDS-based backbone cov-
ering all the network points. Then, it sends all the non-
dominators to the sleep mode. A1 outperforms A3 and
A3CovLite in terms of covered area. This can be due to
using a larger number of active nodes to cover the area.
5.3. Residual energy
The residual energy is dened as the average remaining
energy of the active sensor nodes at the end of each simu-
lation experiment. Fig. 4 shows the average residual energy
of the active sensor nodes as a function of the network size.
From the results shown in this gure, it is observed that
the average residual energy level of the proposed area cov-
erage algorithm is signicantly higher than the other
methods. This is due to the fact that the proposed method
makes a good trade-off between the number of active
nodes (required to cover the area) and the amount of en-
ergy consumption in each active node by selection of a
proper degree-constraint. This signicantly reduces the
number of nodes covering the same points of the area,
while avoids the rapid exhaustion of the active sensors
for handling a huge number of neighbors. The results also
show that A3 has the lowest residual energy level, and
A3CovLite slightly outperforms A3. This is because A3-
based approaches reduce the number of backbone nodes
by activating the farther nodes from the parent node. This
causes a non-uniform distribution of the communication
overhead and places a heavy load on the active nodes.
Therefore, A3-based approaches result in the imbalanced
energy consumption within the network. Comparing the
results of A1 and A3, it can be seen that A1 provides a sig-
nicant higher residual energy level as compared to A3.
This is due to the fact that in A1 protocol the nodes calcu-
late the timeout with the selection criteria resulting in a
balanced virtual backbone.
5.4. Network lifetime
Network lifetime is dened as the average period of
time during which the set of active sensors remain con-
nected. Minimizing the energy consumption and maximiz-
ing the network lifetime are the major concerns of the
design of the coverage protocols. Network lifetime implic-
itly shows the energy-efciency and load balancing of the
coverage protocol. Fig. 5 shows the changes in the network
lifetime as the number of network nodes changes from 50
to 250 with increment step 50. From the results shown in
Fig. 3. The percentage of the covered area vs. the network size.
Fig. 4. The average residual energy of the active nodes as a function of the
number of nodes.
J. Akbari Torkestani / Ad Hoc Networks 11 (2013) 16551666 1663
Fig. 5, it can be seen that for all coverage algorithms, the
network lifetime reduces as the network size increases.
This can be due to the fact that the backbone size grows
and it makes harder evenly distribution of the network
load on the backbone nodes. Comparing the curves de-
picted in Fig. 5, it is observed that A3 has the shortest life-
time and the proposed area coverage algorithm has the
longest lifetime. The main objective of the proposed cover-
age algorithm is to extend the lifetime of the network de-
ployed to monitor the area as much as possible. To do so, it
uses the degree-constrained minimumweight CDS concept
to activate the nodes having the maximum residual energy
level, and to evenly distribute the network load on the ac-
tive nodes. This signicantly extends the lifetime of the ac-
tive nodes. As mentioned earlier, A3 tries to reduce the
required number of active nodes to cover the area. On
one hand, this reduces the total energy consumption of
the network by keeping a larger number of sensors in sleep
mode. However, on the other hand, the heavy burden
placed on the small set of active nodes drains them sooner.
This signicantly shortens the network lifetime. A3CovLite
shows a better performance in Fig. 5 as compared to A3. As
shown in Fig. 2, this is achieved by adding redundant active
nodes (dominators) to the CDS. However, as the curves
show in Fig. 4, there is no signicant gap between the aver-
age residual energy level of A3 and A3CovLite. A1 uses the
largest set of (redundant) active nodes to cover the area.
The results given in Fig. 5 show its superiority over A3
and A3CovLite.
5.5. Control message overhead
In this experiment, the control message overhead is
dened as the number of (extra) control messages re-
quired for coverage (degree-constrained CDS formation)
process. The extra messages are the control messages that
are used to construct the CDS-based backbone (i.e., the
message overhead of the coverage protocol). This metric
is measured as the number of control messages that must
be sent per second. Fig. 6 depicts the control message
overhead of the coverage algorithms vs. the number of
nodes. The results show that LAEEC has the lowest control
message overhead and A3 has the highest one. The results
also reveal that A3CovLite lags far behind A1. The reason
for the highly message overhead of A3 is that this proto-
col uses four messages to construct the CDS backbone.
The message complexity of A3 (in worst case) is 4n,
where n is the number of network nodes. A3 uses a chil-
dren recognition message of size 100 bytes as well as
three other messages of size 25 bytes. A3CovLite only
uses two messages of size 25 bytes. The message com-
plexity of A3CovLite is at most 2n. Therefore, it has a
meaningfully lower message overhead than A3. A1 uses
only one type of message (a hello message of size 25 by-
tes) for CDS formation (having message complexity n).
That is why, A1 outperforms A3 and A3CovLite in terms
of control message overhead. The proposed area coverage
algorithm uses only an activation (ACT) message to con-
struct the CDS structure. ACT is a variable-length message
whose size is in the interval [1; [c
k
[[ bytes. The number of
times this message is exchanged between the active
nodes is [c
k
[. Therefore, the average message complexity
of LAEEC is [c
k
[
2
=2 bytes that is signicantly lower than
that of A1.
6. Conclusion
Over the past couple of decades, CDS has received a lot
of attention and found many applications in wireless net-
working such as routing, clustering, backbone formation,
and multicasting. CDS has recently emerged as an innova-
tive approach to model the area coverage problem in
wireless sensor networks and several CDS-based area cov-
erage protocols have been proposed. However, the major
problem affecting the performance of the existing CDS-
based coverage protocols is that they aim at maximizing
the number of sleep nodes to save more energy. This im-
poses a heavy burden on the active nodes for handling a
large number of neighbors. The rapid exhaustion of the
active nodes may disconnect the network topology and
leave the area uncovered. This paper proposed a degree-
constrained minimum-weight extension of the CDS prob-
Fig. 5. Network lifetime vs. the number of nodes.
Fig. 6. The control message overhead vs. the number of network nodes.
1664 J. Akbari Torkestani / Ad Hoc Networks 11 (2013) 16551666
lem called DCDS to model the area coverage problem in
WSNs. Selection of an optimal degree-constraint for the
DCDS balances the network load on the active nodes
and improves the network coverage, connectivity, and
lifetime. This paper designed a learning automata-based
heuristic called LAEEC for nding a near optimal solution
to the proxy equivalent DCDS problem in WSN. The com-
putational complexity of the proposed algorithm to nd a
1
1
optimal solution of the area coverage problem is
approximated. Several simulation experiments were per-
formed to show the performance of the proposed area
coverage algorithm. The results show that LAEEC outper-
forms the existing CDS-based coverage protocols in terms
of the control message overhead, percentage of covered
area, residual energy, number of active nodes (CDS size),
and network lifetime.
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Javad Akbari Torkestani received the B.S. and
M.S. degrees in Computer Engineering in Iran,
in 2001 and 2004, respectively. He also
received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Engi-
neering from Science and Research University,
Iran, in 2009. Currently, he is an assistant
professor in Computer Engineering Depart-
ment at Arak Azad University, Arak, Iran. Prior
to the current position, he joined the faculty
of the Computer Engineering Department at
Arak Azad University as a lecturer. His
research interests include wireless networks,
multi-hop networks, fault tolerant systems, grid computing, learning
systems, parallel algorithms, and soft computing.
1666 J. Akbari Torkestani / Ad Hoc Networks 11 (2013) 16551666