An Energy-Efficient Mobile-Sink Path Selection Strategy for Wireless Sensor Networks

• Published in: IEEE transactions on vehicular technology Vol. 63; no. 5; pp. 2407 - 2419
• Main Authors: Salarian, Hamidreza, Kwan-Wu Chin, Naghdy, Fazel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01-06-2014; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Algorithms; Applied sciences; Clustering algorithms; Computer simulation; Data collection; Delays; Detection, estimation, filtering, equalization, prediction; Energy consumption; Exact sciences and technology; Information, signal and communications theory; Mobile communication; Mobile Sink; Networks; Organization and planning of networks (techniques and equipments); Planning; Remote sensors; Rendezvous; Scheduling; Sensors; Services and terminals of telecommunications; Signal and communications theory; Signal, noise; Systems, networks and services of telecommunications; Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Telemetry. Remote supervision. Telewarning. Remote control; Tours; Wireless networks; Wireless sensor networks; Data collection; mobile sink; scheduling; wireless sensor networks (WSNs); Computer simulation; Wireless telecommunication; Measurement sensor; Durability; Scheduling; Algorithm; Temporal constraint; Remote sensing; Heuristic method; NP hard problem; Electric power consumption; Wireless network; Minimum energy; Delay time; Planning; Low-power electronics; Reliability; Sensor array; Signal detection; Comparative study; Data gathering
• ISSN: 0018-9545; 1939-9359
• DOI: 10.1109/TVT.2013.2291811

Several studies have demonstrated the benefits of using a mobile sink to reduce the energy consumption of nodes and to prevent the formation of energy holes in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). However, these benefits are dependent on the path taken by the mobile sink, particularly in delay-sensitive applications, as all sensed data must be collected within a given time constraint. An approach proposed to address this challenge is to form a hybrid moving pattern in which a mobile-sink node only visits rendezvous points (RPs), as opposed to all nodes. Sensor nodes that are not RPs forward their sensed data via multihopping to the nearest RP. The fundamental problem then becomes computing a tour that visits all these RPs within a given delay bound. Identifying the optimal tour, however, is an NP-hard problem. To address this problem, a heuristic called weighted rendezvous planning (WRP) is proposed, whereby each sensor node is assigned a weight corresponding to its hop distance from the tour and the number of data packets that it forwards to the closest RP. WRP is validated via extensive computer simulation, and our results demonstrate that WRP enables a mobile sink to retrieve all sensed data within a given deadline while conserving the energy expenditure of sensor nodes. More specifically, WRP reduces energy consumption by 22% and increases network lifetime by 44%, as compared with existing algorithms.