The Path Planning of Mobile Sink Based on Wolf Pack Algorithm

Mobile sinks avoids imbalances in energy consumption caused by multihop transmission in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In order to shorten the length of the travel path and further reduce the energy consumption of the network transmission, the mobile sinks travel path was planned. Determining the visiting point of each overlapping area, and use the wolf pack algorithm (WPA) to plan a traveling path. Because the visiting point is a point within the overlapping area of communication ranges of sensors not one by one access to each node, it effectively reduces the length of the path. This method not only shortens the length of the traveling path for the mobile sink but reduces the computational effort required for traveling-path planning by the TSP algorithm as well. The computer simulation proved that the routing protocol can reduce and balance the energy consumption efficiently, prolonging the wireless sensor network survival period and improve the link quality.