Index Terms-wireless sensor networks, N-node coverage optimization, information density, least squares fitting, genetic algorithm Abstract-Deployment is an important issue in wireless sensor networks(WSNs). Most of recent researches focus on the optimal deployment patterns for full-coverage WSNs. In practice, there are only finite number of nodes can be used in WSNs applications, which cannot guarantee that the entire region can be monitored; On the other hand, the information generated from

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... itored objects is distributed unevenly in the monitored region. How to get a reasonable network deployment with the finite number of sensors becomes a practical problem, which should not be neglected. From all above, we propose a new coverage problem in WSNs named N-node coverage, which refers to using the limited number of nodes to achieve maximum information acquirement. In this problem we use the information obtained from the monitored region as the new evaluation standard for network coverage. On the basis of this standard, we construct the N-node network coverage model and convert the deployment problem to a combinatorial optimization problem. we present a heuristic optimization deployment scheme, the OPEN, to solve the problem. Experimental results show that the OPEN can effectively improve the performance of sensor network coverage and provide practical guidance for deployment of WSNs.