Abstract
Sensing coverage is one the most fundamental research issues in wireless sensor networks. It reflects how well a sensor network is able to monitor or track a field of interest. So far, several sensing coverage protocols have been proposed. Throughout the diversity of research works in this topic, major interests focused purely on the coverage problem under the restrictive assumption that each deployed node is equipped with a GPS receiver that provides it with its precise location. However, in some applications, GPS service may be unavailable, non-practical and very expensive. Confronted to this constraint, different GPS-less localization algorithms for wireless sensor networks have been introduced. Such algorithms enable sensor nodes to estimate their position with some degree of precision. In this paper, we tackle the problem of maintaining coverage from the perspective of a GPS-less localization. We present the design and analysis of a novel integrated framework guaranteeing both sensing coverage and GPS-less localization. In sharp contrast to several existing approaches that address the two problems in isolation, we integrate the well- known coverage configuration protocol CCP with the GPS-less localization algorithm AT-Dist. Extensive simulations results show the efficiency of the proposed unified framework in providing guaranteed coverage and localization while considerably reducing the energy consumption. We also discuss the potential security threats in the framework and propose the use of a secure solution to deal with them.