Mobile Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) provide a convenient way to monitor the physical environment. They consist of a large number of sensors that have sensing, computing, and communication abilities. In the past, sensors were considered as static, but the network functionality would degrade when some sensors were broken. Today, the emerging hardware techniques have promoted the development of mobile sensors. Introducing mobility to sensors not only improves their capability but also gives them flexibility to deal with node failure. The article studies the research progress of mobile sensor networks, which embraces both system hardware and dispatch software. For system hardware, we review two popular types of mobile sensor platforms. One is to integrate mobile robots with sensors, whereas the other is to use existing conveyances to carry sensors. Dispatch software includes two topics. We first address how to solve different coverage problems by using a purely mobile WSN and then investigate how to dispatch mobile sensors in a hybrid WSN to perform various missions including data collection, faulty recovery, and event analysis. A discussion about research challenges in mobile sensor networks is also presented in the article.