Towards an optimal placement of sensors in Wireless Sensor Networks with dynamic routing

Abstract

In recent years, to ensure reliable monitoring and analysis of unknown and untested environments, practitioners have started using Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), i.e., collections of tiny disposable, low-power devices, equipped with programmable computing, multiple-parameter-sensing, and wireless communication capacity, able to measure ambient conditions to detect some objects located or events happening around. Hundreds to thousands of unattended sensors forming a WSN communicate with each other and with a central base-station that, in its turn, communicates with the user(s). When designing a WSN, it is critically important to place the sensors and set up routing protocols in such a way as to maintain connectivity and maximize the network lifetime. In this paper, we describe techniques that maximize the network lifetime under the constraint that connectivity is preserved.