Deployment of sensor nodes is one of the key issues in wireless sensor networking. This issue is related with the fact that usually the number of sensor does not allow an individual deployment and, usually in these situations, sensors are randomly spread. Here we present a new method to evaluate the network sensing coverage, identifying those areas where more sensor nodes are needed. This method uses the sensed data variability to estimate a variability coverage index.
Simulation tests have shown that the calculated variability coverage index has higher values for less covered areas and for areas where the connectivity between nodes is limited. For changes in the number of nodes and in the communication range, results are biased by the existence of holes in the area.