{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,20]],"date-time":"2026-06-20T11:16:25Z","timestamp":1781954185068,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":50,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"16","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2019,8,9]],"date-time":"2019-08-09T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1565308800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["61672297"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["61672297"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Key Research and Development Program of Jiangsu Province","award":["BE2017742"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["BE2017742"]}]},{"name":"Sixth Talent Peaks Project of Jiangsu Province","award":["DZXX-017"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["DZXX-017"]}]},{"name":"Jiangsu Natural Science Foundation for Excellent Young Scholars","award":["BK20160089"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["BK20160089"]}]},{"name":"Jiangsu Natural Science Foundation for Excellent Young Scholars","award":["BK20170039"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["BK20170039"]}]},{"name":"Postgraduate Research &amp; Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province","award":["SJKY19_0758"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["SJKY19_0758"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The combination of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and edge computing not only enhances their capabilities, but also motivates a series of new applications. As a typical application, 3D Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) have become a hot research issue. However, the coverage of underwater sensor networks problem must be solved, for it has a great significance for the network\u2019s capacity for information acquisition and environment perception, as well as its survivability. In this paper, we firstly study the minimal number of sensor nodes needed to build a diverse k-coverage sensor network. We then propose a k-Equivalent Radius enhanced Virtual Force Algorithm (called k-ERVFA) to achieve an uneven regional coverage optimization for different k-coverage requirements. Theoretical analysis and simulation experiments are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm. The detailed performance comparisons show that k-ERVFA acquires a better coverage rate in high k-coverage sub-regions, thus achieving a desirable diverse k-coverage deployment. Finally, we perform sensitivity analysis of the simulation parameters and extend k-ERVFA to special cases such as sensor-sparse regions and time-variant situations.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s19163496","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,8,9]],"date-time":"2019-08-09T11:11:31Z","timestamp":1565349091000},"page":"3496","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":23,"title":["An Enhanced Virtual Force Algorithm for Diverse k-Coverage Deployment of 3D Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"19","author":[{"given":"Wenming","family":"Wang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210023, China"},{"name":"University Key Laboratory of Intelligent Perception and Computing of Anhui Province, Anqing Normal University, Anqing 246011, China"},{"name":"Jiangsu High Technology Research Key Laboratory for Wireless Sensor Networks, Nanjing 210023, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4392-3599","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Haiping","family":"Huang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210023, China"},{"name":"Jiangsu High Technology Research Key Laboratory for Wireless Sensor Networks, Nanjing 210023, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Fan","family":"He","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210023, China"},{"name":"Jiangsu High Technology Research Key Laboratory for Wireless Sensor Networks, Nanjing 210023, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Fu","family":"Xiao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210023, China"},{"name":"Jiangsu High Technology Research Key Laboratory for Wireless Sensor Networks, Nanjing 210023, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xin","family":"Jiang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210023, China"},{"name":"Jiangsu High Technology Research Key Laboratory for Wireless Sensor Networks, Nanjing 210023, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2347-2073","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Chao","family":"Sha","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210023, China"},{"name":"Jiangsu High Technology Research Key Laboratory for Wireless Sensor Networks, Nanjing 210023, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,8,9]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"4","article-title":"Water Quality Monitoring Using Wireless Sensor Networks: Current Trends and Future Research Directions","volume":"13","author":"Tapparello","year":"2017","journal-title":"ACM Trans. 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