There is a wide range of application in wireless ad-hoc networks which are related to crucial operations of the government and security, private sectors, health services as well as environmental assessment. Based on the importance of these networks, the coverage area problem has remained an area of focus among researchers and is implemented as one of the most important design criteria of mobile devices. Efficiency consumption of energy is one of the key areas of wireless ad-hoc networks due to the limitation of batteries. Therefore, the protocol that uses low energy consumption is an important factor in these networks due to their impact on the network�s coverage. In this study, the main objective is to determine the energy-efficient algorithms for coverage problems from the literature. It has been determined that to accommodate a large wireless ad-hoc network, distributed algorithms can be used to obtain a higher energy efficiency through coverage regulating algorithms. � 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, London.