End-to-end data collection strategy using mobile sink in wireless sensor networks

Several data collection algorithms, which are based on the combination of using mobile sinks and multiple-hop forwarding, have been proposed to prolong the network lifetime of wireless sensor networks. However, most approaches treat the collection point selection and touring path planning as two independent problems, which leads to a sub-optimal solution for data collection. This article proposed an ant colony optimization based end-to-end data collection strategy to perform the collection point selection and the touring path planning simultaneously. The proposed algorithm first constructs a data-forwarding tree, and then heuristically selects collection points and plans a touring path at the same time. The performance evaluation shows that the end-to-end strategy can improve the network lifetime of wireless sensor network compared to other approaches, especially in the unbalanced distribution scenario of sensors. The end-to-end strategy is also capable of being integrated with other methods.