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's 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.
Keywords: diverse k-coverage; sensor networks; three-dimensional coverage; underwater sensor networks; virtual force algorithm.