A Genetic Algorithm for Multiple Mobile Data Collectors’ Path Planning in WSNs

In mobile data collector (MDC)-based wireless sensor networks, we need to design paths for MDCs for better data collection. In this paper, we use predictable mobility pattern and apply a heuristic algorithm to design paths of MDCs. The algorithm aims to make the time cost by MDCs covering the whole network as short as possible. The algorithm is taken by two steps. Firstly, choose the stop points, and then, construct the paths. Both steps are computed using genetic algorithm (GA). In choosing stop points algorithm, improved stochastic tournament selection is adopted to deal with restraints and special fitness is used to enhance differentiation of solutions. An asexual reproduction based GA with 2-opt optimization mechanism is used to construct MDCs’ paths. As experiments show, the algorithm proposed in this paper performs better than greedy algorithm.

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