Joint mobile energy replenishment and data gathering in wireless rechargeable sensor networks

Miao Zhao, Ji Li, Yuanyuan Yang

Research output: Chapter in book / Conference proceedingConference article published in proceeding or bookAcademic researchpeer-review

108 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that energy harvesting wireless sensor networks have the potential to provide perpetual network operations by capturing renewable energy from the external environment. However, the spatial-temporal profiles of such ambient energy sources typically exhibit great variations, and can only provide intermittent recharging opportunities to support low-rate data services. In order to provide steady and high recharging rates, and achieve energy-efficient data gathering from sensors, in this paper, we propose to utilize mobility for the joint design of energy replenishment and data gathering. In particular, a multifunctional mobile entity, called SenCar in this paper, is employed, which serves not only as a data collector that roams over the field to gather data via short-range communication but also as an energy transporter that charges static sensors on its migration tour via wireless energy transmissions. Taking advantages of the SenCar's controlled mobility, we give a two-stage approach for the joint design. In the first stage, the locations of a subset of sensors are periodically selected as anchor points, where the SenCar will sequentially visit to charge the sensors at these locations and gather data from nearby sensors in a multi-hop fashion. In order to achieve a desirable balance between the energy replenishment amount and data gathering latency, we provide a selection algorithm to search for a maximum number of anchor points where sensors hold the least battery energy, and meanwhile by visiting them the tour length of the SenCar is no more than a threshold value. In the second stage, we consider data gathering performance when the SenCar migrates among these anchor points. We formulate the problem into a network utility maximization problem and propose a distributed algorithm to adjust data rates, link scheduling and flow routing so as to adapt to the up-to-date energy replenishing status of sensors. The effectiveness of our approach is validated by extensive numerical results. Comparing with solar harvesting networks, our solution can improve the network utility by 48% on average.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2011 23rd International Teletraffic Congress, ITC 2011
Pages238-245
Number of pages8
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2011
Externally publishedYes
Event2011 23rd International Teletraffic Congress, ITC 2011 - San Francisco, CA, United States
Duration: 6 Sept 20119 Sept 2011

Conference

Conference2011 23rd International Teletraffic Congress, ITC 2011
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySan Francisco, CA
Period6/09/119/09/11

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Information Systems

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