Optimal and approximate approaches for deployment of heterogeneous sensing devices

A modeling framework for the problem of deploying a set of heterogeneous sensors in a field with time-varying differential surveillance requirements is presented. The problem is formulated as mixed integer mathematical programwith the objective tomaximize coverage of a given field. Two metaheuristics are used to solve this problem. The first heuristic adopts a genetic algorithm (GA) approach while the second heuristic implements a simulated annealing (SA) algorithm. A set of experiments is used to illustrate the capabilities of the developed models and to compare their performance. The experiments investigate the effect of parameters related to the size of the sensor deployment problem including number of deployed sensors, size of the monitored field, and length of the monitoring horizon. They also examine several endogenous parameters related to the developed GA and SA algorithms.