Barrier coverage problem is an important issue in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Many solutions have been proposed for constructing a defense barrier aiming to maximize the surveillance quality while prolonging the network lifetime. However, most of them assumed that the sensor nodes are battery powered without considering the rechargeable sensors. Though the energy conservation issue has been taken into account in most studies, the perpetual network lifetime is still impossible. In addition, most of existing works considered Boolean Sensing Model (BSM) which cannot reflect the physical features of sensing. This paper proposes a barrier coverage algorithm, called MCDP , which considers the rechargeable solar-powered sensors and applies the Probability Sensing Model (PSM) aiming to maximize the surveillance quality while the perpetual network lifetime of WSNs can be achieved. The MCDP algorithm first partitions the time line and monitoring region into several space time points and calculates the detection probability of each sensor to each space time point. Then the proposed MCDP algorithm schedules sensors staying in sensing state and recharging state in each time slot such that the weakest cooperative surveillance quality of the time-space point can be maximized. Experimental study shows that the proposed MCDP algorithm achieves better performance than existing work in terms of surveillance quality, stability of cooperative detection probability as well as fault tolerance.
