Modem illumination of monotone polygons

Abstract

We study a generalization of the classical problem of illumination of polygons. Instead of modeling a light source we model a wireless device whose radio signal can penetrate a given number k of walls. We call these objects k-modems and study the minimum number of k-modems necessary to illuminate monotone and monotone orthogonal polygons. We show that every monotone polygon on n vertices can be illuminated with n 2k

k-modems and exhibit examples of monotone polygons requiring l n 2k+2 m k-modems. For monotone orthogonal polygons, we show that every such polygon on n vertices l can be illuminated with n 2k+4 m k-modems and give examples which require l n 2k+4 m k-modems for k even and l n 2k+6 m for k odd.