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Deployment-Based Solution for Prolonging Lifetime in Sensor Networks with Multiple Mobile Sinks
Sonia Hashish and Ahmed Karmouch

Enhancing sensor network lifetime is an important research topic for wireless sensor networks. Solutions based on linear programming, clustering, controlled non-uniform node distributions and mobility are presented separately in the literature. Even thought, the problem is still open and not fully solved. Drawbacks exist for all the above solutions when considered separately. Perhaps a solution that is able to provide composite benefits of some of them could better solve the problem. In this paper, we introduce a solution for prolonging the lifetime of sensor networks. The proposed solution is based on a deployment strategy of multiple mobile sinks. In our proposal, data traffic is directed away from the network center toward the network peripheral where sinks would be initially deployed. Sinks stay stationary while collecting the data reports that travel over the network perimeter toward them. Eventually perimeter nodes would be exposed to a peeling phenomenon which results in partitioning one or more sinks from their one-hop neighbors. The partitioned sinks move discrete steps following the direction of the progressive peeling towards the network center. The mechanism maintains the network connectivity and delays the occurrence of partition. Moreover, it balances the load among nodes and reduces the energy consumption. The performance of the proposed protocol is evaluated using intensive simulations. The results show the efficiency (in terms of both reliability and connectivity) of our deployment strategy with the associated data collection protocol.

Keywords: Sensor networks, Data collection, Mobile sinks, Deployment.

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