Wireless Sensor Networks Power-Aware Deployment

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are composed by battery supplied nodes. Node lifetime is defined as the time when the node works properly, before battery depletion. Distances between nodes determine the required radio output power level to ensure reliable connectivity among them, affecting then the node battery current consumption. If some node runs out, it could make unreliable network function. For this, it is important to implement a deployment which assures longer node lifetime; however, this problem is a very constrained and non-lineal one. In this paper, we propose a heuristic algorithm for searching network deployments. The algorithm predicts number of nodes, nodes distances and nodes output power level in order to give a deployment that reaches maximum battery lifetime and compliant with user specifications.