Title: Energy-aware utility optimisation for joint multi-path routing and MAC layer retransmission control in TDMA-based wireless sensor networks

Authors: Meng Zheng; Wei Liang; Haibin Yu; Yang Xiao; Jianda Han

Addresses: Lab of Industrial Control Network and System, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 114 Nanta Street, Shenhe District, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, 110016, China ' Lab of Industrial Control Network and System, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 114 Nanta Street, Shenhe District, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, 110016, China ' Lab of Industrial Control Network and System, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 114 Nanta Street, Shenhe District, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, 110016, China ' Department of Computer Science, The University of Alabama, 101 Houser Hall, Box 870290, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0290, USA ' State Key Laboratory of Robotics, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 114 Nanta Street, Shenhe District, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, 110016, China

Abstract: This paper formulates a novel energy-aware utility optimisation (EUO) problem for joint multi-path routing and medium access control (MAC) layer retransmission control in time division multiple access (TDMA)-based wireless sensor networks (WSNs). As the EUO problem is non-convex and inseparable, we propose a heuristic method called Successive Alternating Convex Approximation (SACA) to approximately solve the problem. More precisely, we decompose the EUO problem into two alternating convex sub-problems, namely energy-aware multi-path routing and retransmission control. On one hand, given the time slot allocation, the multi-path routing balances the energy consumption within WSNs. On the other hand, provided the traffic distribution, retransmission control enhances the data reliability in the most energy-efficient way. These two sub-problems are solved recursively by means of dual decomposition. The sequence of optimal solutions to these two sub-problems is shown to converge to some steady-state point that approximates a solution to the EUO problem.

Keywords: wireless sensor networks; WSNs; multi-path routing; retransmission control; convex optimisation; energy awareness; utility optimisation; MAC layer retransmission control; medium access control; TDMA; time division multiple access; energy consumption; data reliability; energy efficiency.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2013.056611

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2013 Vol.14 No.2, pp.120 - 129

Published online: 29 Sep 2013 *

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