Mobile Collector-Based Cost Balancing Scheme for Uniform Data Gathering Delay and Energy Consumption in Wireless Sensor Actuator Networking Systems

Abstract

The sink hole problem is a critical issue for data collection in wireless sensor networks. Recent research has indicated that the mobility of actuators in wireless sensor actuator networks (WSANs) alleviates the sink hole problem. However, mobile actuator-based data collection may result in unsatisfactory data gathering delay, which is not acceptable for delay-sensitive real time applications. Thus, planning the optimal path for mobile collector is a critical challenge in WSANs to balance between the prolongation of network lifetime and the reduction of the data gathering delay. To address this issue, we propose a mobile collector-based cost balancing algorithm to achieve uniform data gathering delay and energy consumption based on the adaptive region partitioning and dynamic polling point selection. The proposed algorithm uses multiple mobile collectors and partitions the sensing area into several regions that are monitored by the mobile collectors according to the distribution of cost in the area. It also dynamically determines moving trajectory of each mobile collector by selecting the polling points to visit considering the distance to travel and the nodes’ energy consumption. The superiority of the proposed algorithm is validated by theoretical analysis and simulation results.