{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,30]],"date-time":"2026-01-30T05:37:08Z","timestamp":1769751428031,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"18","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,11]],"date-time":"2023-09-11T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1694390400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Many animal aggregations display remarkable collective coordinated movements on a large scale, which emerge as a result of distributed local decision-making by individuals. The recent advances in modelling the collective motion of animals through the utilisation of Nearest Neighbour rules, without the need for centralised coordination, resulted in the development of self-deployment algorithms in Mobile Sensor Networks (MSNs) to achieve various types of coverage essential for different applications. However, the energy consumption associated with sensor movement to achieve the desired coverage remains a significant concern for the majority of algorithms reported in the literature. In this paper, the Nearest Neighbour Node Deployment (NNND) algorithm is proposed to efficiently provide blanket coverage across a given area while minimising energy consumption and enhancing fault tolerance. In contrast to other algorithms that sequentially move sensors, NNND leverages the power of parallelism by employing multiple streams of sensor motions, each directed towards a distinct section of the area. The cohesion of each stream is maintained by adaptively choosing a leader for each stream while collision avoidance is also ensured. These properties contribute to minimising the travel distance within each stream, resulting in decreased energy consumption. Additionally, the utilisation of multiple leaders in NNND eliminates the presence of a single point of failure, hence enhancing the fault tolerance of the area coverage. The results of our extensive simulation study demonstrate that NNND not only achieves lower energy consumption but also a higher percentage of k-coverage.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s23187797","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,11]],"date-time":"2023-09-11T10:42:49Z","timestamp":1694428969000},"page":"7797","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Nearest Neighbour Node Deployment Algorithm for Mobile Sensor Networks"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"23","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2961-2871","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mahsa Sadeghi","family":"Ghahroudi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computing, Engineering and Built Environment, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow G4 0BA, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6583-0617","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Alireza","family":"Shahrabi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computing, Engineering and Built Environment, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow G4 0BA, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7281-9192","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Tuleen","family":"Boutaleb","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computing, Engineering and Built Environment, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow G4 0BA, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,11]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"403","article-title":"Bacterial swarming: An example of prokaryotic differentiation and multicellular behaviour","volume":"75","author":"Allison","year":"1991","journal-title":"Sci. Prog. (1933-)"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"498","DOI":"10.1016\/0378-4371(90)90402-E","article-title":"Diffusion-limited growth in bacterial colony formation","volume":"168","author":"Matsushita","year":"1990","journal-title":"Phys. A Stat. Mech. Its Appl."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1016\/0378-4371(94)90165-1","article-title":"Holotransformations of bacterial colonies and genome cybernetics","volume":"202","author":"Tenenbaum","year":"1994","journal-title":"Phys. A Stat. Mech. Its Appl."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"295","DOI":"10.1080\/08927014.1989.9525500","article-title":"Collective patterns and decision-making","volume":"1","author":"Deneubourg","year":"1989","journal-title":"Ethol. Ecol. Evol."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Alt, W., and Hoffmann, G. (2013). Biological Motion: Proceedings of a Workshop Held in K\u00f6nigswinter, Germany, March 16\u201319, 1989, Springer Science Business Media.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-642-51664-1"},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Reynolds, C.W. (1987). Flocks, Herds and Schools: A Distributed Behavioral Model.","DOI":"10.1145\/37401.37406"},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Lei, L., Escobedo, R., Sire, C., and Theraulaz, G. (2020). Computational and robotic modeling reveal parsimonious combinations of interactions between individuals in schooling fish. PLoS Comput. Biol., 16.","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1007194"},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"R1140","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cub.2022.08.035","article-title":"Collective action in birds","volume":"32","author":"Farine","year":"2022","journal-title":"Curr. Biol."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2971","DOI":"10.1242\/jeb.129411","article-title":"Understanding how animal groups achieve coordinated movement","volume":"219","year":"2016","journal-title":"J. Exp. Biol."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"185","DOI":"10.1016\/0375-9601(95)00624-C","article-title":"Pattern formation and functionality in swarm models","volume":"207","author":"Rauch","year":"1995","journal-title":"Phys. Lett. A"},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"683","DOI":"10.1038\/s41567-018-0107-y","article-title":"The physics of cooperative transport in groups of ants","volume":"14","author":"Feinerman","year":"2018","journal-title":"Nat. Phys."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bal\u00e1zs, B., and V\u00e1s\u00e1rhelyi, G. (2018, January 21\u201325). Coordinated dense aerial traffic with self-driving drones. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Brisbane, QLD, Australia.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICRA.2018.8461073"},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"eaat3536","DOI":"10.1126\/scirobotics.aat3536","article-title":"Optimized flocking of autonomous drones in confined environments","volume":"3","author":"Somorjai","year":"2018","journal-title":"Sci. Robot."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1226","DOI":"10.1103\/PhysRevLett.75.1226","article-title":"Novel type of phase transition in a system of self-driven particles","volume":"75","author":"Vicsek","year":"1995","journal-title":"Phys. Rev. Lett."},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"981","DOI":"10.1109\/TAC.2004.829621","article-title":"Coordinated collective motion of groups of autonomous mobile robots: Analysis of Vicsek\u2019s model","volume":"49","author":"Savkin","year":"2004","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Autom. Control"},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7362","DOI":"10.1109\/TCYB.2020.3042511","article-title":"Adaptive Coordination Ant Colony Optimization for Multipoint Dynamic Aggregation","volume":"52","author":"Gao","year":"2022","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Cybern."},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"988","DOI":"10.1109\/TAC.2003.812781","article-title":"Coordination of Groups of Mobile Autonomous Agents Using Nearest Neighbor Rules","volume":"48","author":"Jadbabaie","year":"2003","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Autom. Control"},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1550","DOI":"10.1016\/j.physd.2009.04.011","article-title":"Finite-time information consensus for multi-agent systems with fixed and switching topologies","volume":"238","author":"Jiang","year":"2009","journal-title":"Phys. D Nonlinear Phenom."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"87","DOI":"10.1007\/s10846-008-9230-9","article-title":"Coordinated collective motion of groups of autonomous mobile robots with directed interconnected topology","volume":"53","author":"Yu","year":"2008","journal-title":"J. Intell. Robot. Syst."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"283","DOI":"10.1017\/S0263574710000147","article-title":"Decentralized control for mobile robotic sensor network self-deployment: Barrier and sweep coverage problems","volume":"29","author":"Cheng","year":"2011","journal-title":"Robotica"},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"949","DOI":"10.1109\/LCOMM.2012.040912.110932","article-title":"Optimal distributed blanket coverage self-deployment of mobile wireless sensor networks","volume":"16","author":"Savkin","year":"2012","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Lett."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Savkin, A.V., Cheng, T.M., Xi, Z., Javed, F., Matveev, A.S., and Nguyen, H. (2015). Decentralized Coverage Control Problems for Mobile Robotic Sensor and Actuator Networks, John Wiley & Sons.","DOI":"10.1002\/9781119058052"},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Savkin, A.V., Xi, Z., and Nguyen, H.T. (2013, January 23\u201326). An algorithm of decentralized encircling coverage and termination of a moving deformable region by mobile robotic sensor\/actuator networks. Proceedings of the 2013 9th Asian Control Conference (ASCC), Istanbul, Turkey.","DOI":"10.1109\/ASCC.2013.6606103"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"4973","DOI":"10.1109\/TWC.2021.3135385","article-title":"Energy-Efficient Deployment in Static and Mobile Heterogeneous Multi-Hop Wireless Sensor Networks","volume":"21","author":"Guo","year":"2022","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun."},{"key":"ref_25","unstructured":"Jadbabaie, A. (2003). On Distributed Coordination of Mobile Agents with Changing Nearest Neighbors, University of Pennsylvania."},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"877","DOI":"10.1109\/LCOMM.2009.091178","article-title":"A distributed self-deployment algorithm for the coverage of mobile wireless sensor networks","volume":"13","author":"Cheng","year":"2009","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Lett."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Cheng, T.M., and Savkin, A.V. (2009, January 15\u201318). Decentralized control of a mobile sensor network for deployment in corridor coverage. Proceedings of the 48h IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) Held Jointly with 2009 28th Chinese Control Conference, Shanghai, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/CDC.2009.5400065"},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"497","DOI":"10.1016\/j.robot.2011.03.001","article-title":"Decentralized control of a group of mobile robots for deployment in sweep coverage","volume":"59","author":"Cheng","year":"2011","journal-title":"Robot. Auton. Syst."},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1461","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2022.3208056","article-title":"Coverage Optimization for Directional Sensor Networks: A Novel Sensor Redeployment Scheme","volume":"10","author":"Cai","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE Internet Things J."}],"container-title":["Sensors"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/23\/18\/7797\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,10]],"date-time":"2025-10-10T20:48:34Z","timestamp":1760129314000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/23\/18\/7797"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,11]]},"references-count":29,"journal-issue":{"issue":"18","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,9]]}},"alternative-id":["s23187797"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/s23187797","relation":{},"ISSN":["1424-8220"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1424-8220","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,11]]}}}