Mixture Integer Programming Based Optimal Transmission Policy Design for Multiple Applications in Wireless Sensor Networks

To support multiple applications in an energy aware manner is very important for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). One key issue in supporting multiple applications is to search for the optimal transmission policy for each application so as to execute as many important applications as possible under the remaining network energy constraint. In this paper, the transmission policy is abstracted as the number of packets transmitted along each possible link. An energy consumption model is developed to investigate the energy consumption for packets transmission along each link. Then, a mixture integer programming model is developed to search for the optimal transmission policy for each application under the delay constraint. Based on the model, a management mechanism is developed to schedule the packets transmission for each application. And a novel concept of energy reservation is introduced in supporting multiple applications. Then, a global optimization model is developed to derive the performance upper bound in the investigated multiple applications scenarios. Simulation results show that the mechanism can save energy greatly in the investigated scenarios.