Path Optimization of Field Sensor Network for Sweep Coverage

In this paper, a novel sweep coverage task is constructed considering the valid time. The main goal is to continuously optimize the poses of multiple field sensors to maintain the coverage performance of the defined valid area, under the premise that the valid area will turn invalid after the valid time. A general field sensor model is introduced, and the sensing strength representing the coverage performance is defined with the help of homeomorphic transformation techniques. The invalidation property of the target area is described, and the sweep coverage task for maximizing the coverage performance of the valid area is formulated as a cost function, which also considers the collision avoidance between sensors. The cost function is then optimized by gradient-ascent based algorithm. The results of designed simulation and experiment verify the performance and applicability of the proposed method for sweep coverage optimization.