Scheduling algorithms for extending directional sensor network lifetime

Recently, directional sensor networks that are composed of a large number of directional sensors have attracted a great deal of attention. The main issues associated with the directional sensors are limited battery power and restricted sensing angle. Therefore, monitoring all the targets in a given area and, at the same time, maximizing the network lifetime has remained a challenge. As sensors are often densely deployed, a promising approach to conserve the energy of directional sensors is developing efficient scheduling algorithms. These algorithms partition the sensor directions into multiple cover sets each of which is able to monitor all the targets. The problem of constructing the maximum number of cover sets has been modeled as the multiple directional cover sets (MDCS), which has been proved to be an NP-complete problem. In this study, we design two new scheduling algorithms, a greedy-based algorithm and a learning automata (LA)-based algorithm, in order to solve the MDCS problem. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithms, several experiments were conducted. The obtained results demonstrated the efficiency of both algorithms in terms of extending the network lifetime. Simulation results also revealed that the LA-based algorithm was more successful compared to the greedy-based one in terms of prolonging network lifetime.     

A Learning Automata-Based Solution to the Priority-Based Target Coverage Problem in Directional Sensor Networks

In recent years, directional sensor networks composed of directional sensors have attracted a great deal of attention due to their extensive applications. The main difficulties associated with directional sensors are their limited battery power and restricted sensing angle. Moreover, each target may have a different coverage quality requirement that can make the problem even more complicated. Therefore, satisfying the coverage quality requirement of all the targets in a specific area and maximizing the network lifetime, known as priority-based target coverage problem, has remained a challenge. As sensors are often densely deployed, organizing the sensor directions into several cover sets and then activating these cover sets successively is a promising solution to this problem. In this paper, we propose a learning automata-based algorithm to organize the directional sensors into several cover sets in such a way that each cover set can satisfy coverage quality requirement of all the targets. In order to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm, several simulations were conducted. The obtained results showed that the proposed algorithm was successful in extending the network lifetime.     

Maximization of WSN Life Using Hybrid Evolutionary Programming

Of all the challenges faced by wireless sensor networks (WSN), extending the lifetime of the network has received the most attention from researchers. This issue is critically important, especially when sensors are deployed to areas where it is practically impossible to charge their batteries, which are their only sources of power. Besides the development and deployment of ultra low-power devices, one effective computational approach is to partition the collection of sensors into several disjoint covers, so that each cover includes all targets, and then, activate the sensors of each cover one at a time.. This maximizes the possible disjoint covers with an available number of sensors and can be treated as a set-K cover problem, which has been proven to be NP-complete. Evolutionary programming is a very powerful algorithm that uses mutation as the primary operator for evolution. Hence, mutation defines the quality and time consumed in the final solution computation. We have applied the self adaptive mutation strategy based on hybridization of Gaussian and Cauchy distributions to develop to develop a faster and better solution. One of the limitations associated with the evolutionary process is that it requires definition of the redundancy covers, and therefore, it is difficult to obtain the upper bound of a cover. To solve this problem, a redundancy removal operator that forces the evolution process to find a solution without redundancy is introduced. Through simulations, it is shown that the proposed method maximizes the lifespan of WSNs.     

Optimal barrier coverage for critical area surveillance using wireless sensor networks

Intrusion detection using barrier coverage is one of many applications existed in wireless sensor networks. The main purpose of using barrier coverage is to monitor the borders of a specific area against the intruders that are trying to penetrate this critical area by ensuring the total coverage with a low cost and extending the lifetime of the network, many solutions have been proposed in the literature in order to solve the coverage problem in wireless sensor networks, which became a vital field of research. In this paper, we present a new technique based on geometric mathematical models, in order to guarantee the total coverage of our deployed barriers with a minimum possible number of sensors. The idea is to calculate the number of sensors adequate to cover a barrier before deployment. We then formulate the problem to minimize the number of sensors to be deployed to properly cover a barrier; the calculation makes it possible to solve this problem in polynomial using our own heuristic. Additionally, we propose a new mechanism for ensuring a fault‐tolerant network by detecting the faulty sensors and select other suited sensors to close the existing gaps inside the barriers and detecting the sensors whose energy is low before the failure. The obtained simulation results prove the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.     

Learning Automata-Based Algorithms for Solving the Target Coverage Problem in Directional Sensor Networks

Recently, directional sensor networks have received a great deal of attention due to their wide range of applications in different fields. A unique characteristic of directional sensors is their limitation in both sensing angle and battery power, which highlights the significance of covering all the targets and, at the same time, extending the network lifetime. It is known as the target coverage problem that has been proved as an NP-complete problem. In this paper, we propose four learning automata-based algorithms to solve this problem. Additionally, several pruning rules are designed to improve the performance of these algorithms. To evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithms, several experiments were carried out. The theoretical maximum was used as a baseline to which the results of all the proposed algorithms are compared. The obtained results showed that the proposed algorithms could solve efficiently the target coverage problem.     

Power-Saving Scheduling for Multiple-Target Coverage in Wireless Sensor Networks

We address the multiple-target coverage problem (MTCP) in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). We also propose an energy-efficient sensor-scheduling algorithm for multiple-target coverage (MTC) that considers both the transmitting energy for collected data and overlapped targets. We introduce two algorithms: one optimal, the other heuristic. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms can contribute to extending the lifetime of network and that the heuristic algorithm is more practical than the optimal algorithm with respect to complexity.     

A clustered trail-based data dissemination protocol for improving the lifetime of duty cycle enabled wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) usually consist of unmanned and self-organized sensor devices deployed on a target region for monitoring and target tracking purposes. Therefore, extending the lifetime of WSNs is critical to their proper operation. Static sink schemes have been studied extensively and several solutions were proposed to extend the lifetime of WSNs. Such static solutions are known for their bottleneck in the vicinity of a sink, where sensor nodes are more likely to be used as data forwarding points to a nearby sink. These nodes carry most of the data traffic and consequently deplete their energy resources faster than nodes deployed far off static sinks, which end up creating blind spots or even network partitions. A partitioned, i.e., disconnected network will cease to function properly in view of sink stations becoming unreachable. The consensus reached by the research community to solve this bottleneck, or at least to alleviate traffic and energy consumption near data sinks, is the use of mobile sinks. To this end, this paper presents a new data dissemination strategy (eTrail) that combines clustering, trail generation, and sleep scheduling techniques to extend network lifetime even further. Network lifetime is modeled and analyzed by means of a continuous time Markov chain. In addition, an extensive set of simulation experiments is presented and discussed. Results show that eTrail outperforms existing schemes in terms of network lifetime, while maintaining acceptable packet delivery reliability and latency.     

Secure coverage-preserving node scheduling scheme using energy prediction for wireless sensor networks

With the fast development of the micro-electro-mechanical systems(MEMS),wireless sensor networks(WSNs)have been extensively studied.Most of the studies focus on saving energy consumption because of restricted energy supply in WSNs.Cluster-based node scheduling scheme is commonly considered as one of the most energy-efficient approaches.However,it is not always so efficient especially when there exist hot spot and network attacks in WSNs.In this article,a secure coverage-preserved node scheduling scheme for WSNs based on energy prediction is proposed in an uneven deployment environment.The scheme is comprised of an uneven clustering algorithm based on arithmetic progression,a cover set partition algorithm based on trust and a node scheduling algorithm based on energy prediction.Simulation results show that network lifetime of the scheme is 350 rounds longer than that of other scheduling algorithms.Furthermore,the scheme can keep a high network coverage ratio during the network lifetime and achieve the designed objective which makes energy dissipation of most nodes in WSNs balanced.     

A Convex Programming for Range Assignment to Optimize Lifetime in Network-Coding-Based-Wireless-Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are known to be highly energy-constrained and  consequently lifetime is a critical metric in their design and implementation. Range assignment by adjusting the transmission powers of nodes create a energy-efficient topology for such networks while preserving other network issues, however, it may effect on the performance of other techniques such as network coding. This paper addresses the problem of lifetime optimization for WSNs where the network employs both range assignment and network-coding-based multicast. We formulate the problem and then reformulated it as convex optimization that offer a numerous theoretical or conceptual advantages. The proposed programming leads to efficient or distributed algorithms for solving the problem. Simulation results show that the proposed optimized mechanism decreases end-to-end delay and improve lifetime as compared by other conventional ones.     

A novel approach for designing delay efficient path for mobile sink in wireless sensor networks

In the recent years, the use of mobile sink has drawn enormous attention for data collection in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Mobile sink is well known for solving hotspot or sinkhole problem. However, the design of an efficient path for mobile sink has tremendous impact on network lifetime and coverage in data collection process of WSNs. This is particularly an important issue for many critical applications of WSNs where data collection requires to be carried out in delay bound manner. In this paper, we propose a novel scheme for delay efficient trajectory design of a mobile sink in a cluster based WSN so that it can be used for critical applications without compromising the complete coverage of the target area. Given a set of gateways (cluster heads), our scheme determines a set of rendezvous points for designing path of the mobile sink for critical applications. The scheme is based on the Voronoi diagram. We also propose an efficient method for recovery of the orphan sensor nodes generated due to the failure of one or more cluster heads during data collection. We perform extensive simulations over the proposed algorithm and compare its results with existing algorithms to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm in terms of network lifetime, path length, average waiting time, fault tolerance and adaptability etc. For the fault tolerance, we simulate the schemes using Weibull distribution and analyze their performances.     

Distributed fuzzy logic based energy‐aware and coverage preserving unequal clustering algorithm for wireless sensor networks

In an energy‐constrained wireless sensor networks (WSNs), clustering is found to be an effective strategy to minimize the energy depletion of sensor nodes. In clustered WSNs, network is partitioned into set of clusters, each having a coordinator called cluster head (CH), which collects data from its cluster members and forwards it to the base station (BS) via other CHs. Clustered WSNs often suffer from the hot spot problem where CHs closer to the BS die much early because of high energy consumption contributed by the data forwarding load. Such death of nodes results coverage holes in the network very early. In most applications of WSNs, coverage preservation of the target area is a primary measure of quality of service. Considering the energy limitation of sensors, most of the clustering algorithms designed for WSNs focus on energy efficiency while ignoring the coverage requirement. In this paper, we propose a distributed clustering algorithm that uses fuzzy logic to establish a trade‐off between the energy efficiency and coverage requirement. This algorithm considers both energy and coverage parameters during cluster formation to maximize the coverage preservation of target area. Further, to deal with hot spot problem, it forms unequal sized clusters such that more CHs are available closer to BS to share the high data forwarding load. The performance of the proposed clustering algorithm is compared with some of the well‐known existing algorithms under different network scenarios. The simulation results validate the superiority of our algorithm in network lifetime, coverage preservation, and energy efficiency.     

Scheduling sensor activity for information coverage of discrete targets in sensor networks

In this paper, we study the problem of scheduling sensor activity to cover a set of targets with known locations such that all targets can be monitored all the time and the network can operate as long as possible. A solution to this scheduling problem is to partition all sensors into some sensor covers such that each cover can monitor all targets and the covers are activated sequentially. In this paper, we propose to provide information coverage instead of the conventional sensing disk coverage for target. The notion of information coverage is based on estimation theory to exploit the collaborative nature of geographically distributed sensors. Due to the use of information coverage, a target that is not within the sensing disk of any single sensor can still be considered to be monitored (information covered) by the cooperation of more than one sensor. This change of the problem settings complicates the solutions compared to that by using a disk coverage model. We first define the target information coverage (TIC) problem and prove its NP‐completeness. We then propose a heuristic to approximately solve our problem. Simulation results show that our heuristic is better than an existing algorithm and is close to the upper bound when only the sensing disk coverage model is used. Furthermore, simulation results also show that the network lifetime can be significantly improved by using the notion of information coverage compared with that by using the conventional definition of sensing disk coverage. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enhanced algorithms for deploying the minimum sensors to construct a wireless sensor network having full coverage of critical square grids

With the rapid technological development of sensors, many applications have been designed to use wireless sensor networks to monitor a certain area and provide quality-of-service guarantees. Therefore, the coverage problem had an important issue for constructing wireless sensor networks. Recently, a coverage problem of constructing a minimum size wireless sensor network to fully cover critical squares in a sensor field, termed CRITICAL-SQUARE-GRID COVERAGE, has received much attention. CRITICAL-SQUARE-GRID COVERAGE is shown to be NP-Complete, and an approximation algorithm, termed Steiner-tree-based critical grid covering algorithm (STBCGCA), is proposed accordingly. In STBCGCA, a sensor is selected to cover critical squares only if at least one of the critical squares is fully covered by the sensor. However, a critical square grid can be cooperatively covered by two or more sensors; that is, one sensor covers one part of the critical square, and the other sensors cover the other part of the critical square. This motivates us to propose two efficient algorithms based on STBCGCA, termed critical-grid-partitioned (CGP-STBCGCA) and reference-point-covered (RPC-STBCGCA), that select sensors that can cooperatively cover critical squares in an attempt to minimize the size of the wireless sensor network. The theoretical analysis shows that sensors deployed by CGP-STBCGCA and RPC-STBCGCA can form a connected wireless sensor network that fully covers all critical grids. In addition, a performance guarantee for CGP-STBCGCA is provided. Simulation results show that the ratio of the average number of deployed sensors in STBCGCA to that in CGP-STBCGCA and RPC-STBCGCA in about 90 % of the cases was between 1.08 and 2.52 for CRITICAL-SQUARE-GRID COVERAGE.     

EFFORT: energy‐efficient opportunistic routing technology in wireless sensor networks

The utilization of limited energy in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is the critical concern, whereas the effectiveness of routing mechanisms substantially influence energy usage. We notice that two common issues in existing specific routing schemes for WSNs are that (i) a path may traverse through a specific set of sensors, draining out their energy quickly and (ii) packet retransmissions over unreliable links may consume energy significantly. In this paper, we develop an energy‐efficient routing scheme (called EFFORT) to maximize the amount of data gathered in WSNs before the end of network lifetime. By exploiting two natural advantages of opportunistic routing, that is, the path diversity and the improvement of transmission reliability, we propose a new metric that enables each sensor to determine a suitable set of forwarders as well as their relay priorities. We then present EFFORT, a routing protocol that utilizes energy efficiently and prolongs network lifetime based on the proposed routing metric. Simulation results show that EFFORT significantly outperforms other routing protocols. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

QoS‐aware target coverage in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks have emerged recently as an effective way of monitoring remote or inhospitable physical targets, which usually have different quality of service (QoS) constraints, i.e., different targets may need different sensing quality in terms of the number of transducers, sampling rate, etc. In this paper, we address the problem of optimizing network lifetime while capturing those diversified QoS coverage constraints in such surveillance sensor networks. We show that this problem belongs to NP‐complete class. We define a subset of sensors meeting QoS requirements as a coverage pattern, and if the full set of coverage patterns is given, we can mathematically formulate the problem. Directly solving this formulation however is difficult since number of coverage patterns may be exponential to number of sensors and targets. Hence, a column generation (CG)‐based approach is proposed to decompose the original formulation into two subproblems and solve them iteratively. Here a column corresponds to a feasible coverage pattern, and the idea is to find a column with steepest ascent in lifetime, based on which we iteratively search for the maximum lifetime solution. An initial feasible set of patterns is generated through a novel random selection algorithm (RSA), in order to launch our approach. Experimental data demonstrate that the proposed CG‐based approach is an efficient solution, even in a harsh environment. Simulation results also reveal the impact of different network parameters on network lifetime, giving certain guidance on designing and maintaining such surveillance sensor networks. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fuzzy chessboard clustering and artificial bee colony routing method for energy‐efficient heterogeneous wireless sensor networks

Energy is an extremely critical resource for battery‐powered wireless sensor networks (WSNs), thus making energy‐efficient protocol design a key challenging problem. However, uneven energy consumption is an inherent problem in WSNs caused by multi‐hop routing and many‐to‐one traffic pattern among sensors. In this paper, we therefore propose a new clustering method called fuzzy chessboard clustering (FFC), which is capable to overcome the bottleneck problem and addressing the uneven energy consumption problem in heterogeneous WSNs. We also propose an energy‐efficient routing method called artificial bee colony routing method (ABCRM) to find the optimal routing path for the heterogeneous WSNs. ABCRM seeks to investigate the problems of balancing energy consumption and maximization of network lifetime. To demonstrate the effectiveness of FCC‐ABCRM in terms of lessening end‐to‐end delay, balancing energy consumption, and maximization of heterogeneous network lifetime, we compare our method with three approaches namely, chessboard clustering approach, PEGASIS, and LEACH. Simulation results show that the network lifetime achieved by FCC‐ABCRM could be increased by nearly 25%, 45%, and 60% more than that obtained by chessboard clustering, PEGASIS, and LEACH, respectively. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

3D node deployment strategies prediction in wireless sensors network

ABSTRACT

3D Deployment plays a fundamental role in setting up efficient wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and IoT networks. In general, WSN are widely utilised in a set of real contexts such as monitoring smart houses and forest fires with parachuted sensors. This study focus on planned 3D deployment in which the sensor nodes must be accurately positioned at predetermined locations to optimise one or more design objectives under some given constraints. The purpose of planned deployment is to identify the type, the number, and the locations of nodes to optimise the coverage, the connectivity and the network lifetime. There have been a large number of studies that proposed algorithms resolving the premeditated problem of 3D deployment. The objective of this study is twofold. The first one is to present the complexity of 3D deployment and then detail the types of sensors, objectives, applications and recent research that concerns the strategy used to solve this problem. The second one is to present a comparative survey between the recent optimisation strategies solving the problem of 3D deployment in WSN. Based on our extensive review, we discuss the strengths and limitations of each proposed solution and compare them in terms of WSN design factors.     

WCDS‐DCR: an energy‐efficient data‐centric routing scheme for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) typically consist of a large number of battery‐constrained sensors often deployed in harsh environments with little to no human control, thereby necessitating scalable and energy‐efficient techniques. This paper proposes a scalable and energy‐efficient routing scheme, called WCDS‐DCR, suitable for these WSNs. WCDS‐DCR is a fully distributed, data‐centric, routing technique that makes use of an underlying clustering structure induced by the construction of WCDS (Weakly Connected Dominating Set) to prolong network lifetime. It aims at extending network lifetime through the use of data aggregation (based on the elimination of redundant data packets) by some particular nodes. It also utilizes both the energy availability information and the distances (in number of hops) from sensors to the sink in order to make hop‐by‐hop, energy‐aware, routing decisions. Simulation results show that our solution is scalable, and outperforms existing schemes in terms of network lifetime. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An energy efficient Genetic Algorithm based approach for sensor-to-sink binding in multi-sink wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are ad-hoc networks in which sensors, that are designed to relay data back to sink nodes and/or Base Stations, are deployed in an area and may be configured in real time. Sensors, however, have limited energy supplies and are often left untouched after deployment, thus making battery replacement very difficult or even impossible. Therefore, energy should be efficiently conserved to extend the WSNs lifetime. One of the existing solutions is to deploy multiple sinks, more capable nodes in comparison to sensors, in the network to increase the coverage area and shorten the communication distance between sensors and sinks. However, this raises the issue concerning which sensors should bind to which sinks in order to avoid overloading particular sinks. In this paper, we devise a Genetic Algorithm based approach to solve the problem of balancing the load of sensors amongst sinks in a multi-sink WSN, while ensuring that the best routes to sinks are found for the sensors that cannot directly reach a sink. We evaluate the performance of our approach and compare it to an existing one using the network simulator NS-2 through measuring several metrics such as the variance of remaining energy among sinks, and energy consumption in sinks. The obtained results show that the proposed approach promising.