The delay-constrained information coverage problem in mobile sensor networks: single hop case.

In this paper, we study the delay-constrained information coverage problem in mobile sensor networks. Motivated by real application needs, our formulation takes advantage of the sensor mobility for sensing information collection, which takes place when a sensor moves into the proximity (single hop) of stationary sink nodes. To the best of our knowledge, we present the first formulation for the delay-constrained information coverage problem, which targets at optimal sink nodes placement with the objective of maximizing sensing information collection within a constrained time. We prove that this problem is NP-hard even under finite search space approximation and we develop theoretical analysis to derive its upper and lower performance bounds. We then develop approximation techniques and use simulations to verify their effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]