Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2007, Volume 4549/2007, 295-308, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-73090-3_20

Efficient Computation of Minimum Exposure Paths in a Sensor Network Field

Hristo N. Djidjev

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Abstract

The exposure of a path p is a measure of the likelihood that an object traveling along p is detected by a network of sensors and it is formally defined as an integral over all points x of p of the sensibility (the strength of the signal coming from x) times the element of path length. The minimum exposure path (MEP) problem is, given a pair of points x and y inside a sensor field, find a path between x and y of a minimum exposure. In this paper we introduce the first rigorous treatment of the problem, designing an approximation algorithm for the MEP problem with guaranteed performance characteristics. Given a convex polygon P of size n with O(n) sensors inside it and any real number ε> 0 , our algorithm finds a path in P whose exposure is within an 1 + ε factor of the exposure of the MEP, in time O(n/ε 2 ψ), where ψ is a topological characteristic of the field. We also describe a framework for a faster implementation of our algorithm, which reduces the time by a factor of approximately Θ(1/ε), by keeping the same approximation ratio.

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