A Novel Niche Quantum Ant Colony-Based Clustering Optimization Approach for Wireless Auto Meter Reading Network

Abstract

Since the low cost and high flexibility, wireless automatic meter reading network (WAMRN) is widely used by utility companies to realize automatic collection and transmission of remote energy consumption information. Considering that WAMRN is composed of several wireless communication nodes, the lifetime of the network will be affected by factors such as the changeable deployment environment and the limited energy of nodes. Thus, a novel niche quantum ant colony-based WAMRN clustering optimization method is proposed in this paper to address the problem of how to make full use of the limited energy to extend network lifetime and improve data transmission efficiency. In the proposed approach, a clustering model of WAMRN is defined; moreover, an improved Niche Quantum Ant Colony Optimization (NQACO) is proposed to optimize the model therefore to obtain an optimal clustering scheme, which can help WAMRN reduce unnecessary energy loss to achieve the purpose of extending the lifetime of the entire network. To verify the performance of the proposed method, NQACO is compared with some popular clustering methods, i.e., GA and SA, under different scenarios. The results show that under the premise of ensuring network communication, NQACO is superior to the other two methods in reducing the total energy consumption and prolonging the network lifetime.