Positioning and Coverage of Distributed Devices

Abstract

As it strongly affects system performance in measuring 3D point coordinates, sensor positioning represents a challenging issue in Large-Scale Dimensional Metrology applications based on wireless sensor networks. In this chapter the wide variety of existing placement approaches are discussed according to two main categorization criteria, sensor mobility capabilities and deployment schemes. The main network design challenges—sensing and communication models, working environment geometry, operating conditions, physical constraints, measurement procedures, measurement tasks, and localisation techniques—are presented. A practical case study of sensor placement, applied within the framework of the MScMS, is discussed. An optimisation strategy for designing a stationary network is applied, involving working environment constraints, system functional characteristics, measurand geometry, and measurement task definition within the 3-dimensional network design. The network configurations resulting from a regular-grid based strategy and a genetic algorithms-based approach are compared in terms of overall costs, sensor availability and measurement precision.