Decomposing Coverings and the Planar Sensor Cover Problem

Abstract

We show that a k-fold covering using translates of an arbitrary convex polygon can be decomposed into Omega(k) covers (using an efficient algorithm). We generalize this result to obtain a constant factor approximation to the sensor cover problem where the ranges of the sensors are translates of a given convex polygon. The crucial ingredient in this generalization is a constant factor approximation algorithm for a one-dimensional version of the sensor cover problem, called the Restricted Strip Cover (RSC) problem, where sensors are intervals of possibly different lengths. Our algorithm for RSC improves on the previous O(log log log n) approximation.