Actor Positioning with Minimal Movement in Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks

This paper proposes an algorithm that relocates actors to appropriate positions in order for them to act as cluster heads (CHs) with minimal movement in a clustered sensor network. The proposed algorithm assigns actors to target positions in the cluster center (CC). The CC is an area where the transmission ranges of a CH and its neighboring sensors are overlapped. The proposed algorithm first computes a CC in a cluster and then designates the closest point from an actor in the CC as a target position. At the target position, a relocated actor establishes direct links with all neighbors of a CH in order to substitute for the CH. The target position is located on the boundary of the CC, whereas the CH position is inside the region. Therefore, the actor reduces the movement distance required to become a CH when it moves to the target position rather than to the CH position. In the simulation, our proposed algorithm is compared with the existing algorithm that places the actor at the CH position. The results of the simulation show that our algorithm reduces the movement distance by 12.7% compared with that of contemporary scheme.