Relay node placement with energy and buffer constraints in wireless sensor networks using mobile data collector

摘要

Higher-powered relay nodes, used as cluster heads in hierarchical sensor networks, can improve network performances. Most existing relay node placement strategies consider only stationary nodes, where data are routed to the base station(s), possibly using multiple hops. We consider a relay node based network, where a Mobile Data Collector (MDC) collects data from each relay node and delivers the collected data to the base station. This reduces the energy dissipation of the relay nodes by relieving them of the burden of transmitting data over longer distances. The issue is to find the minimum number of relay nodes, along with their locations, such that network coverage and lifetime requirements are satisfied. We present an integrated Integer Linear Program (ILP) formulation that determines an optimal relay node placement scheme, which ensures that there is no data loss due to buffer overflow and the energy dissipation does not exceed a specified level.