Network Lifetime Maximization in Wireless Sensor Networks with a Path-Constrained Mobile Sink

Wireless sensor networks with the mobile sink can help to prevent the hot-spot problem and improve the network lifetime. However, in practice, the trajectories of the sink can not ideally change due to the obstacle of the environment or the requirement of the application. The constraint on trajectory of the mobile sink causes the different connection time between the mobile sink and the sensor node, which might result in the imbalance depletion of energy. We propose here an efficient data gathering policy to jointly consider the constrained mobility of the sink and the different connection time at the sensor node. The policy increases the network lifetime in wireless sensor networks with path-constrained mobile sink by optimizing the assignment sensor node. In addition, we also propose the policy to cope with the overlapped connection time of the sink and sensor node due to the movement of the sink. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed policy: by carefully considering the trajectory of the sink and effectively assigning the sensor node, the network lifetime is increased.