Optimization Algorithm for Energy-efficient Wireless Sensor Network Design Problem

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks hold promise as a way of monitoring the structural health of railway structures, especially those that are underground or otherwise difficult to access. In this paper, effective algorithms for designing wireless sensor networks are investigated. The authors review optimization problems arising in railway system and highlight the importance of minimizing the total cost of the wireless sensor network in a general communication environment while maximizing the network lifetime in a poor communication environment. A life span algorithm for the network lifetime maximization problem and a Lagrangian heuristic algorithm for the total cost minimization problem are proposed. The effectiveness of these algorithms was verified using randomly generated data and data acquired from a real wireless sensor network. The results indicate that the proposed algorithms can be effectively used in the design of wireless sensor networks for railway structural health monitoring.