Exposure-Length Trade-off Optimization for Obstacle-Aware Intrusion Paths in Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Barrier coverage is a key paradigm for intrusion detection and surveillance in IoT-enabled heterogeneous wireless sensor networks, where monitoring quality depends not only on the existence of sensing barriers but also on the detectability of feasible crossing paths. In this paper, we study the obstacle-aware maximal exposure path planning problem in heterogeneous sensor fields under truncated omni-directional sensing and line-of-sight occlusion. Unlike conventional maximal exposure formulations that focus only on exposure maximization, the considered problem seeks side-to-side feasible paths that simultaneously maximize accumulated sensing exposure and minimize path length in obstacle-constrained environments. To address this bi-objective problem, we develop OG-MOEA/D, a problem-specific MOEAD method that combines a fixed-grid path representation with obstacle-aware feasibility checking and adaptive repair. The standard decomposition, neighborhood update, SBX, and polynomial mutation mechanisms are inherited from MOEA/D rather than claimed as new. Extensive simulations on networks with varying sensor densities and obstacle layouts show that OG-MOEA/D consistently improves hypervolume over generations and produces well-distributed Pareto fronts. Direct obstacle-constrained comparisons with MOEA/D and NSGA-II over 20 independent runs show higher HV and lower IGD for OG-MOEA/D in all four tested sensor-network sizes. The results should be interpreted as controlled simulation evidence for surveillance-strength evaluation in synthetic two-dimensional heterogeneous WSN scenarios, rather than as a model of realistic evasive intrusion behavior or a complete real-world deployment.