Relay Node Position Optimization in Complex Environment

Abstract

Environment has an essential effect on the selection of relay node positions. Real application environment of Wireless Sensor Networks usually is complex and heterogeneous where wireless channel has different characteristics at different locations. In network deployment, the environment also constrains relay node locations. There are areas unfeasible for node deployment. This paper studies the relay node placement problem in such complex environment. Our target of relay node position optimization is to minimize the relay node number and improve network performance by optimizing route paths of sensor nodes. Heuristic operations for genetic algorithms are proposed to optimize relay node positions. Simulation results show that the relay nodes number of the proposed algorithm is less than that of 2-approximation Steiner tree algorithm and the route paths of selected relay nodes have almost the best cost among route paths of all feasible relay nodes.