A preliminary study of information collection in a mobile sensor network

Mobile sensor networks are desirable in a variety of application scenarios, in which information collection is no doubt of great importance. In this paper, we present a mobile sensor network architecture consisting of a potentially large number of mobile sensors and a single or multiple stationary sink nodes for sensing information collection. We formulate a distinct coverage measurement problem in term of sensing information collection; we study the relevant performance and examine the effect from a variety of relevant factors through extensive simulations. We demonstrate that the performance is not only affected by the sensor mobility and the transmission range between mobile sensors and sink node(s), but also by the distribution of mobile sensors and the number and locations of sink nodes. Based on the observation and analysis, we also provide some preliminary understandings and implications for improving the information collection performance.

[1]  Tracy Camp,et al.  A survey of mobility models for ad hoc network research , 2002, Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput..

[2]  Wolfgang Stadje,et al.  The exact probability distribution of a two-dimensional random walk , 1987 .

[3]  Cauligi S. Raghavendra,et al.  PEGASIS: Power-efficient gathering in sensor information systems , 2002, Proceedings, IEEE Aerospace Conference.

[4]  Qian Zhang,et al.  Probabilistic Field Coverage using a Hybrid Network of Static and Mobile Sensors , 2007, 2007 Fifteenth IEEE International Workshop on Quality of Service.

[5]  João Barros,et al.  Random Walks on Sensor Networks , 2007, 2007 5th International Symposium on Modeling and Optimization in Mobile, Ad Hoc and Wireless Networks and Workshops.

[6]  Alhussein A. Abouzeid,et al.  Stochastic Event Capture Using Mobile Sensors Subject to a Quality Metric , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

[7]  Ibrahim Korpeoglu,et al.  Power efficient data gathering and aggregation in wireless sensor networks , 2003, SGMD.

[8]  Konstantinos Kalpakis,et al.  Efficient algorithms for maximum lifetime data gathering and aggregation in wireless sensor networks , 2003, Comput. Networks.

[9]  Donald F. Towsley,et al.  Mobility improves coverage of sensor networks , 2005, MobiHoc '05.

[10]  R. Srikant,et al.  Unreliable sensor grids: coverage, connectivity and diameter , 2005, Ad Hoc Networks.

[11]  Ellen W. Zegura,et al.  A message ferrying approach for data delivery in sparse mobile ad hoc networks , 2004, MobiHoc '04.

[12]  Deborah Estrin,et al.  Intelligent fluid infrastructure for embedded networks , 2004, MobiSys '04.

[13]  Waylon Brunette,et al.  Data MULEs: modeling a three-tier architecture for sparse sensor networks , 2003, Proceedings of the First IEEE International Workshop on Sensor Network Protocols and Applications, 2003..