Abstract
This paper is intended to serve as an overview of, and mostly a tutorial to illustrate, the optimization techniques used in several different key design aspects that have been considered in the literature of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). It targets the researchers who are new to the mathematical optimization tool, and wish to apply it to WSN design problems. We hence divide the paper into two main parts. One part is dedicated to introduce optimization theory and an overview on some of its techniques that could be helpful in design problem in WSNs. In the second part, we present a number of design aspects that we came across in the WSN literature in which mathematical optimization methods have been used in the design. For each design aspect, a key paper is selected, and for each we explain the formulation techniques and the solution methods implemented. We also provide in-depth analyses and assessments of the problem formulations, the corresponding solution techniques and experimental procedures in some of these papers. The analyses and assessments, which are provided in the form of comments, are meant to reflect the points that we believe should be taken into account when using optimization as a tool for design purposes.
Highlights
As the technology evolves, the wireless sensors manufactured become technically more powerful and economically viable
The following are the main elements of the system model in [5]: 1. Time slotted system with finite number of slots was considered, 2. the battery of each sensor is assumed to have an infinite rechargeable capacity, 3. multiple sensing sources and multiple destination nodes are considered, 4. utility function that reflects the “satisfaction” of the node is associated with each source node when it transmits at an average data rate xs (t) that is equal to the aggregate amount of data from that source to a particular destination over all time slots averaged over the duration of the frame
It was observed that Rwc was greater than Rac with the difference increasing versus the uncertainty level, indicating that robust solutions are more attractive at the expense of small performance losses
Summary
The wireless sensors manufactured become technically more powerful and economically viable. In wireless sensor networks (WSN) each node consists basically of units for sensing, processing, radio transmission, position finding and sometimes mobilizers [1]. These sensors measure desired phenomenal conditions in their surroundings and digitize them to process the received signals to reveal some characteristics of the conditions in the surrounding area. The sensor nodes in a wireless sensor network WSN sense and gather data from surrounding environment and transmit it to one or more sinks, to perform more intensive processing. There are four broad categories of optimization problems, where for each category, an extensive literature of different methods to solve certain sub categories have been proposed.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
