On the Problem of Energy Balanced Relay Sensor Placement in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Balanced energy depletion is an important way to prolong network lifetime for wireless sensor networks. Traditional algorithms mainly aim at maximizing network coverage rate with uniform sensor node distribution. However, wireless sensor network is characterized by many-to-one traffic pattern and multihop communication, which usually lead to the energy hole problem in the region around the sink node. In this paper, we investigate the problem of joint placement for both relays and sensors to eliminate energy hole. We first theoretically conclude that balanced energy depletion is achievable with rational designed deployment density for relay nodes. We then propose a novel relay deploying strategy as well as a data routing scheme to eliminate uneven energy depletion. Extensive simulations are presented to verify that our approach outperforms other schemes in terms of both network lifetime and unused energy ratio.