Title: Distributed clustering approach for UAV integrated wireless sensor networks

Authors: Huseyin Okcu; Mujdat Soyturk

Addresses: Naval Science and Engineering Institute, Tuzla, Istanbul, 93942, Turkey ' Department of Computer Engineering, Marmara University, Goztepe, Istanbul 34722, Turkey

Abstract: Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of battery-limited sensor nodes which have the ability of sensing the environment, communicating with other nodes and processing the data. Large number of sensor node deployment over a geographical area imposes some constraints on the retrieval of the data. The use of mobile sinks (e.g., unmanned aerial vehicle, UAV) is an effective solution method for such large-scale networks. However, depending on the path and altitude of the UAV, and the type of radios in use, coverage problem arises where some nodes cannot get connected to the UAV. In this paper, the coverage problem is examined where UAV is used as mobile sink node. On the basis of our analysis, a dynamic and distributed clustering approach is proposed. Evaluations are performed with a realistic simulation environment. Performance results show that proposed approach reduces the energy-consumption and construct more stable and well balanced clusters that connect the uncovered nodes to the UAV.

Keywords: WSNs; wireless sensor networks; energy efficiency; network lifetime; distributed clustering; UAVs; unmanned aerial vehicles; RSS; received signal strength; RSSI; received signal strength indicator; network coverage; wireless networks; mobile sinks; simulation; energy consumption.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAHUC.2014.059912

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, 2014 Vol.15 No.1/2/3, pp.106 - 120

Received: 22 Dec 2012
Accepted: 22 Aug 2013
Published online: 19 Mar 2014 *

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