Title: An energy-balanced self-deployment algorithm based on virtual force for mobile sensor networks

Authors: Jie Jia; Jian Chen

Addresses: School of Information Science and Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China ' School of Information Science and Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China

Abstract: One of the major concerns in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is to prolong network lifetime while providing a high quality of service, such as target coverage and network connectivity. Due to the uneven traffic load caused by many-to-one communications in a sensor network, sensors closer to the sink tend to deplete their energy faster than others, which may create an energy hole near the sink, drastically reducing the network lifetime. In this paper, an energy-balanced sensor redistribution problem is addressed systematically through the use of sensor mobility. The variable sensor distributed density is presented to balance energy consumption. Further, a self-deployment algorithm based on virtual force is proposed. Finally, extensive simulations are conducted to verify our analysis for mobile sensor networks.

Keywords: mobile sensor networks; self-deployment; network coverage; virtual force; network lifetime; energy balance; mobile networks; wireless sensor networks; WSNs; sensor redistribution; sensor mobility; energy consumption; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2015.072862

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2015 Vol.19 No.3/4, pp.150 - 160

Received: 15 Feb 2012
Accepted: 13 May 2012

Published online: 05 Nov 2015 *

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