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44 \journal{Journal of Supercomputing}
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70 \title{Multiround Distributed Lifetime Coverage Optimization Protocol in Wireless Sensor Networks}
72 %% use optional labels to link authors explicitly to addresses:
73 %% \author[label1,label2]{}
76 %\author{Ali Kadhum Idrees, Karine Deschinkel, \\
77 %Michel Salomon, and Rapha\"el Couturier}
79 %\thanks{are members in the AND team - DISC department - FEMTO-ST Institute, University of Franche-Comt\'e, Belfort, France.
80 % e-mail: ali.idness@edu.univ-fcomte.fr, $\lbrace$karine.deschinkel, michel.salomon, raphael.couturier$\rbrace$@univ-fcomte.fr.}% <-this % stops a space
81 %\thanks{}% <-this % stops a space
83 %\address{FEMTO-ST Institute, University of Franche-Comt\'e, Belfort, France. \\
84 %e-mail: ali.idness@edu.univ-fcomte.fr, \\
85 %$\lbrace$karine.deschinkel, michel.salomon, raphael.couturier$\rbrace$@univ-fcomte.fr.}
87 \author{Ali Kadhum Idrees$^{a,b}$, Karine Deschinkel$^{a}$, \\
88 Michel Salomon$^{a}$, and Rapha\"el Couturier $^{a}$ \\
89 $^{a}${\em{FEMTO-ST Institute, DISC department, UMR 6174 CNRS, \\
90 Univ. Bourgogne Franche-Comt\'e (UBFC), Belfort, France}} \\
91 $^{b}${\em{Department of Computer Science, University of Babylon, Babylon, Iraq}}}
94 Coverage and lifetime are two paramount problems in Wireless Sensor Networks
95 (WSNs). In this paper, a method called Multiround Distributed Lifetime Coverage
96 Optimization protocol (MuDiLCO) is proposed to maintain the coverage and to
97 improve the lifetime in wireless sensor networks. The area of interest is first
98 divided into subregions and then the MuDiLCO protocol is distributed on the
99 sensor nodes in each subregion. The proposed MuDiLCO protocol works in periods
100 during which sets of sensor nodes are scheduled, with one set for each round of
101 a period, to remain active during the sensing phase and thus ensure coverage so
102 as to maximize the WSN lifetime. The decision process is carried out by a
103 leader node, which solves an optimization problem to produce the best
104 representative sets to be used during the rounds of the sensing phase. The
105 optimization problem formulated as an integer program is solved to optimality
106 through a Branch-and-Bound method for small instances. For larger instances,
107 the best feasible solution found by the solver after a given time limit
108 threshold is considered. Compared with some existing protocols, simulation
109 results based on multiple criteria (energy consumption, coverage ratio, and so
110 on) show that the proposed protocol can prolong efficiently the network lifetime
111 and improve the coverage performance.
115 Wireless Sensor Networks, Area Coverage, Network Lifetime,
116 Optimization, Scheduling, Distributed Computation.
121 \section{Introduction}
123 \indent The fast developments of low-cost sensor devices and wireless
124 communications have allowed the emergence of WSNs. A WSN includes a large number
125 of small, limited-power sensors that can sense, process, and transmit data over
126 a wireless communication. They communicate with each other by using multi-hop
127 wireless communications and cooperate together to monitor the area of interest,
128 so that each measured data can be reported to a monitoring center called sink
129 for further analysis~\cite{Sudip03}. There are several fields of application
130 covering a wide spectrum for a WSN, including health, home, environmental,
131 military, and industrial applications~\cite{Akyildiz02}.
133 On the one hand sensor nodes run on batteries with limited capacities, and it is
134 often costly or simply impossible to replace and/or recharge batteries,
135 especially in remote and hostile environments. Obviously, to achieve a long life
136 of the network it is important to conserve battery power. Therefore, lifetime
137 optimization is one of the most critical issues in wireless sensor networks. On
138 the other hand we must guarantee coverage over the area of interest. To fulfill
139 these two objectives, the main idea is to take advantage of overlapping sensing
140 regions to turn-off redundant sensor nodes and thus save energy. In this paper,
141 we concentrate on the area coverage problem, with the objective of maximizing
142 the network lifetime by using an optimized multiround scheduling.
144 The MuDiLCO protocol (for Multiround Distributed Lifetime Coverage Optimization
145 protocol) presented in this paper is an extension of the approach introduced
146 in~\cite{idrees2015distributed}.
147 % In~\cite{idrees2015distributed}, the protocol is
148 %deployed over only two subregions. Simulation results have shown that it was
149 %more interesting to divide the area into several subregions, given the
150 %computation complexity.
152 \textcolor{blue}{ Compared to our previous work~\cite{idrees2015distributed},
153 in this paper we study the possibility of dividing the sensing phase into
154 multiple rounds. We make a multiround optimization,
155 while previously it was a single round optimization. The idea is to
156 take advantage of the pre-sensing phase to plan the sensor's activity for
157 several rounds instead of one, thus saving energy. In addition, when the
158 optimization problem becomes more complex, its resolution is stopped after a
159 given time threshold. In this paper we also analyze the performance of our
160 protocol according to the number of primary points used (the area coverage is
161 replaced by the coverage of a set of particular points called primary points,
162 see Section~\ref{pp}).}
164 The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The next section reviews the
165 related works in the field. Section~\ref{pd} is devoted to the description of
166 MuDiLCO protocol. Section~\ref{exp} introduces the experimental framework, it
167 describes the simulation setup and the different metrics used to assess the
168 performances. Section~\ref{analysis} shows the simulation results obtained
169 using the discrete event simulator OMNeT++ \cite{varga}. They fully demonstrate
170 the usefulness of the proposed approach. Finally, we give concluding remarks
171 and some suggestions for future works in Section~\ref{sec:conclusion}.
173 \section{Related works}
176 \indent This section is dedicated to the various approaches proposed in the
177 literature for the coverage lifetime maximization problem, where the objective
178 is to optimally schedule sensors' activities in order to extend network lifetime
179 in WSNs. Cardei and Wu \cite{cardei2006energy} provide a taxonomy for coverage
180 algorithms in WSNs according to several design choices:
182 \item Sensors scheduling algorithm implementation, i.e. centralized or
183 distributed/localized algorithms.
184 \item The objective of sensor coverage, i.e. to maximize the network lifetime or
185 to minimize the number of active sensors during a sensing round.
186 \item The homogeneous or heterogeneous nature of the nodes, in terms of sensing
187 or communication capabilities.
188 \item The node deployment method, which may be random or deterministic.
189 \item Additional requirements for energy-efficient and connected coverage.
192 The choice of non-disjoint or disjoint cover sets (sensors participate or not in
193 many cover sets) can be added to the above list.
195 \subsection{Centralized approaches}
197 The major approach is to divide/organize the sensors into a suitable number of
198 cover sets where each set completely covers an interest region and to activate
199 these cover sets successively. The centralized algorithms always provide nearly
200 or close to optimal solution since the algorithm has global view of the whole
201 network. Note that centralized algorithms have the advantage of requiring very
202 low processing power from the sensor nodes, which usually have limited
203 processing capabilities. The main drawback of this kind of approach is its
204 higher cost in communications, since the node that will make the decision needs
205 information from all the sensor nodes. Exact or heuristic
206 approaches are designed to provide cover sets. Contrary to exact methods,
207 heuristic ones can handle very large and centralized problems. They are
208 proposed to reduce computational overhead such as energy consumption, delay,
209 and generally allow to increase the network lifetime.
211 The first algorithms proposed in the literature consider that the cover sets are
212 disjoint: a sensor node appears in exactly one of the generated cover
213 sets~\cite{abrams2004set,cardei2005improving,Slijepcevic01powerefficient}. In
214 the case of non-disjoint algorithms \cite{pujari2011high}, sensors may
215 participate in more than one cover set. In some cases, this may prolong the
216 lifetime of the network in comparison to the disjoint cover set algorithms, but
217 designing algorithms for non-disjoint cover sets generally induces a higher
218 order of complexity. Moreover, in case of a sensor's failure, non-disjoint
219 scheduling policies are less resilient and reliable because a sensor may be
220 involved in more than one cover sets.
222 In~\cite{yang2014maximum}, the authors have considered a linear programming
223 approach to select the minimum number of working sensor nodes, in order to
224 preserve a maximum coverage and to extend lifetime of the network. Cheng et
225 al.~\cite{cheng2014energy} have defined a heuristic algorithm called Cover Sets
226 Balance (CSB), which chooses a set of active nodes using the tuple (data
227 coverage range, residual energy). Then, they have introduced a new Correlated
228 Node Set Computing (CNSC) algorithm to find the correlated node set for a given
229 node. After that, they proposed a High Residual Energy First (HREF) node
230 selection algorithm to minimize the number of active nodes so as to prolong the
231 network lifetime. Various centralized methods based on column generation
232 approaches have also been
233 proposed~\cite{gentili2013,castano2013column,rossi2012exact,deschinkel2012column}.
234 In~\cite{gentili2013}, authors highlight the trade-off between
235 the network lifetime and the coverage percentage. They show that network
236 lifetime can be hugely improved by decreasing the coverage ratio.
238 \subsection{Distributed approaches}
240 In distributed and localized coverage algorithms, the required computation to
241 schedule the activity of sensor nodes will be done by the cooperation among
242 neighboring nodes. These algorithms may require more computation power for the
243 processing by the cooperating sensor nodes, but they are more scalable for large
244 WSNs. Localized and distributed algorithms generally result in non-disjoint set
247 Many distributed algorithms have been developed to perform the scheduling so as
248 to preserve coverage, see for example
249 \cite{Gallais06,Tian02,Ye03,Zhang05,HeinzelmanCB02, yardibi2010distributed,
250 prasad2007distributed,Misra}. Distributed algorithms typically operate in
251 rounds for a predetermined duration. At the beginning of each round, a sensor
252 exchanges information with its neighbors and makes a decision to either remain
253 turned on or to go to sleep for the round. This decision is basically made on
254 simple greedy criteria like the largest uncovered area
255 \cite{Berman05efficientenergy} or maximum uncovered targets
256 \cite{lu2003coverage}. The Distributed Adaptive Sleep Scheduling Algorithm
257 (DASSA) \cite{yardibi2010distributed} does not require location information of
258 sensors while maintaining connectivity and satisfying a user defined coverage
259 target. In DASSA, nodes use the residual energy levels and feedback from the
260 sink for scheduling the activity of their neighbors. This feedback mechanism
261 reduces the randomness in scheduling that would otherwise occur due to the
262 absence of location information. In \cite{ChinhVu}, the authors have designed a
263 novel distributed heuristic, called Distributed Energy-efficient Scheduling for
264 k-coverage (DESK), which ensures that the energy consumption among the sensors
265 is balanced and the lifetime maximized while the coverage requirement is
266 maintained. This heuristic works in rounds, requires only one-hop neighbor
267 information, and each sensor decides its status (active or sleep) based on the
268 perimeter coverage model from~\cite{Huang:2003:CPW:941350.941367}.
270 The works presented in \cite{Bang, Zhixin, Zhang} focus on coverage-aware,
271 distributed energy-efficient, and distributed clustering methods respectively,
272 which aim at extending the network lifetime, while the coverage is ensured.
273 More recently, Shibo et al. \cite{Shibo} have expressed the coverage problem as
274 a minimum weight submodular set cover problem and proposed a Distributed
275 Truncated Greedy Algorithm (DTGA) to solve it. They take advantage from both
276 temporal and spatial correlations between data sensed by different sensors, and
277 leverage prediction, to improve the lifetime. In \cite{xu2001geography}, Xu et
278 al. have described an algorithm, called Geographical Adaptive Fidelity (GAF),
279 which uses geographic location information to divide the area of interest into
280 fixed square grids. Within each grid, it keeps only one node staying awake to
281 take the responsibility of sensing and communication.
283 Some other approaches (outside the scope of our work) do not consider a
284 synchronized and predetermined time-slot where the sensors are active or not.
285 Indeed, each sensor maintains its own timer and its wake-up time is randomized
286 \cite{Ye03} or regulated \cite{cardei2005maximum} over time.
288 \section{MuDiLCO protocol description}
291 \subsection{Assumptions and primary points}
294 \textcolor{blue}{The assumptions and the coverage model are identical to those presented
295 in~\cite{idrees2015distributed}. We consider a scenario in which sensors are deployed in high
296 density to initially ensure a high coverage ratio of the interested area. Each
297 sensor has a predefined sensing range $R_s$, an initial energy supply
298 (eventually different from each other) and is supposed to be equipped with
299 a module to locate its geographical positions. All space points within the
300 disk centered at the sensor with the radius of the sensing range are said to be
301 covered by this sensor.}
303 \indent Instead of working with the coverage area, we consider for each sensor a
304 set of points called primary points~\cite{idrees2014coverage}. We assume that
305 the sensing disk defined by a sensor is covered if all the primary points of
306 this sensor are covered. By knowing the position of wireless sensor node
307 (centered at the the position $\left(p_x,p_y\right)$) and its sensing range
308 $R_s$, we define up to 25 primary points $X_1$ to $X_{25}$ as described on
309 Figure~\ref{fig1}. The optimal number of primary points is investigated in
310 section~\ref{ch4:sec:04:06}.
312 The coordinates of the primary points are defined as follows:\\
313 %$(p_x,p_y)$ = point center of wireless sensor node\\
315 $X_2=( p_x + R_s * (1), p_y + R_s * (0) )$\\
316 $X_3=( p_x + R_s * (-1), p_y + R_s * (0)) $\\
317 $X_4=( p_x + R_s * (0), p_y + R_s * (1) )$\\
318 $X_5=( p_x + R_s * (0), p_y + R_s * (-1 )) $\\
319 $X_6=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{2}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{2}}{2})) $\\
320 $X_7=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{2}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{2}}{2})) $\\
321 $X_8=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{2}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{2}}{2})) $\\
322 $X_9=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{2}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{2}}{2})) $\\
323 $X_{10}= ( p_x + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{2}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (0)) $\\
324 $X_{11}=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{2}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (0))$\\
325 $X_{12}=( p_x + R_s * (0), p_y + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{2}}{2})) $\\
326 $X_{13}=( p_x + R_s * (0), p_y + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{2}}{2})) $\\
327 $X_{14}=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{1}{2})) $\\
328 $X_{15}=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{3}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{1}{2})) $\\
329 $X_{16}=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{- 1}{2})) $\\
330 $X_{17}=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{3}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{- 1}{2})) $\\
331 $X_{18}=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (0)) $\\
332 $X_{19}=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{3}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (0)) $\\
333 $X_{20}=( p_x + R_s * (0), p_y + R_s * (\frac{1}{2})) $\\
334 $X_{21}=( p_x + R_s * (0), p_y + R_s * (-\frac{1}{2})) $\\
335 $X_{22}=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{1}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2})) $\\
336 $X_{23}=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{- 1}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2})) $\\
337 $X_{24}=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{- 1}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{3}}{2})) $\\
338 $X_{25}=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{1}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{3}}{2})) $.
342 \includegraphics[scale=0.375]{fig26.pdf}
344 \caption{Wireless sensor node represented by up to 25~primary points}
347 \subsection{Background idea}
349 The WSN area of interest is, at first, divided into regular homogeneous
350 subregions using a divide-and-conquer algorithm. Then, our protocol will be
351 executed in a distributed way in each subregion simultaneously to schedule
352 nodes' activities for one sensing period. Sensor nodes are assumed to be
353 deployed almost uniformly and with high density over the region. The regular
354 subdivision is made so that the number of hops between any pairs of sensors
355 inside a subregion is less than or equal to 3.
357 As can be seen in Figure~\ref{fig2}, our protocol works in periods fashion,
358 where each period is divided into 4~phases: Information~Exchange,
359 Leader~Election, Decision, and Sensing. \textcolor{blue}{Compared to
360 the DiLCO protocol described in~\cite{idrees2015distributed},} each sensing phase is itself
361 divided into $T$ rounds of equal duration and for each round a set of sensors (a
362 cover set) is responsible for the sensing task. In this way a multiround
363 optimization process is performed during each period after Information~Exchange
364 and Leader~Election phases, in order to produce $T$ cover sets that will take
365 the mission of sensing for $T$
366 rounds. \textcolor{blue}{Algorithm~\ref{alg:MuDiLCO} is executed by each sensor
367 node~$s_j$ (with enough remaining energy) at the beginning of a period.}
369 \centering \includegraphics[width=125mm]{Modelgeneral.pdf} % 70mm
370 \caption{The MuDiLCO protocol scheme executed on each node}
374 \begin{algorithm}[h!]
376 \If{ $RE_j \geq E_{R}$ }{
377 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMMUNICATION}\;
378 \emph{Send $INFO()$ packet to other nodes in the subregion}\;
379 \emph{Wait $INFO()$ packet from other nodes in the subregion}\;
381 \emph{LeaderID = Leader election}\;
382 \If{$ s_j.ID = LeaderID $}{
383 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMPUTATION}\;
384 \emph{$\left\{\left(X_{1,k},\dots,X_{T,k}\right)\right\}_{k \in J}$ =
385 Execute Integer Program Algorithm($T,J$)}\;
386 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMMUNICATION}\;
387 \emph{Send $ActiveSleep()$ packet to each node $k$ in subregion: a packet \\
388 with vector of activity scheduling $(X_{1,k},\dots,X_{T,k})$}\;
389 \emph{Update $RE_j $}\;
392 \emph{$s_j.status$ = LISTENING}\;
393 \emph{Wait $ActiveSleep()$ packet from the Leader}\;
394 \emph{Update $RE_j $}\;
397 \Else { Exclude $s_j$ from entering in the current sensing phase}
399 \caption{MuDiLCO($s_j$)}
403 \textcolor{blue}{As already described in~\cite{idrees2015distributed}}, two
404 types of packets are used by the proposed protocol:
405 \begin{enumerate}[(a)]
406 \item INFO packet: such a packet will be sent by each sensor node to all the
407 nodes inside a subregion for information exchange.
408 \item Active-Sleep packet: sent by the leader to all the nodes inside a
409 subregion to inform them to remain Active or to go Sleep during the sensing
413 There are five status for each sensor node in the network:
414 \begin{enumerate}[(a)]
415 \item LISTENING: sensor node is waiting for a decision (to be active or not);
416 \item COMPUTATION: sensor node has been elected as leader and applies the
417 optimization process;
418 \item ACTIVE: sensor node is taking part in the monitoring of the area;
419 \item SLEEP: sensor node is turned off to save energy;
420 \item COMMUNICATION: sensor node is transmitting or receiving packet.
423 This protocol minimizes the impact of unexpected node failure (not due to
424 batteries running out of energy), because it works in periods. On the one hand,
425 if a node failure is detected before making the decision, the node will not
426 participate to this phase, and, on the other hand, if the node failure occurs
427 after the decision, the sensing task of the network will be temporarily
428 affected: only during the period of sensing until a new period starts. The
429 duration of the rounds is a predefined parameter. Round duration should be long
430 enough to hide the system control overhead and short enough to minimize the
431 negative effects in case of node failures.
433 The energy consumption and some other constraints can easily be taken into
434 account, since the sensors can update and then exchange their information
435 (including their residual energy) at the beginning of each period. However, the
436 pre-sensing phases (Information Exchange, Leader Election, and Decision) are
437 energy consuming for some nodes, even when they do not join the network to
440 At the beginning of each period, each sensor which has enough remaining energy
441 ($RE_j$) to be alive during at least one round ($E_{R}$ is the amount of energy
442 required to be alive during one round) sends (line 3 of
443 Algorithm~\ref{alg:MuDiLCO}) its position, remaining energy $RE_j$, and the
444 number of neighbors $NBR_j$ to all wireless sensor nodes in its subregion by
445 using an INFO packet (containing information on position coordinates, current
446 remaining energy, sensor node ID, number of its one-hop live neighbors) and then
447 waits for packets sent by other nodes (line 4).
449 After that, each node will have information about all the sensor nodes in the
450 subregion. The nodes in the same subregion will select (line 5) a Wireless
451 Sensor Node Leader (WSNL) based on the received information from all other nodes
452 in the same subregion. The selection criteria are, in order of importance:
453 larger number of neighbors, larger remaining energy, and then in case of
454 equality, larger index. Observations on previous simulations suggest to use the
455 number of one-hop neighbors as the primary criterion to reduce energy
456 consumption due to the communications.
458 %Each WSNL will solve an integer program to select which cover
459 % sets will be activated in the following sensing phase to cover the subregion
460 % to which it belongs. $T$ cover sets will be produced, one for each round. The
461 % WSNL will send an Active-Sleep packet to each sensor in the subregion based on
462 % the algorithm's results, indicating if the sensor should be active or not in
463 % each round of the sensing phase.
464 \subsection{Multiround Optimization model}
467 As shown in Algorithm~\ref{alg:MuDiLCO} at line 8, the leader (WNSL) will
468 execute an optimization algorithm based on an integer program to select the
469 cover sets to be activated in the following sensing phase to cover the subregion
470 to which it belongs. $T$ cover sets will be produced, one for each round. The
471 WSNL will send an Active-Sleep packet to each sensor in the subregion based on
472 the algorithm's results (line 10), indicating if the sensor should be active or
473 not in each round of the sensing phase.
475 The integer program is based on the model proposed by \cite{pedraza2006} with
476 some modifications, where the objective is to find a maximum number of disjoint
477 cover sets. To fulfill this goal, the authors proposed an integer program which
478 forces undercoverage and overcoverage of targets to become minimal at the same
479 time. They use binary variables $x_{jl}$ to indicate if sensor $j$ belongs to
480 cover set $l$. In our model, we consider binary variables $X_{t,j}$ to
481 determine the possibility of activating sensor $j$ during round $t$ of a given
482 sensing phase. We also consider primary points as targets. The set of primary
483 points is denoted by $P$ and the set of sensors by $J$. Only sensors able to be
484 alive during at least one round are involved in the integer program.
485 \textcolor{blue}{Note that the proposed integer program is an
486 extension of the one formulated in~\cite{idrees2015distributed}, variables are now indexed in
487 addition with the number of round $t$.}
489 For a primary point $p$, let $\alpha_{j,p}$ denote the indicator function of
490 whether the point $p$ is covered, that is:
492 \alpha_{j,p} = \left \{
494 1 & \mbox{if the primary point $p$ is covered} \\
495 & \mbox{by sensor node $j$}, \\
496 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
500 The number of active sensors that cover the primary point $p$ during
501 round $t$ is equal to $\sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{j,p} * X_{t,j}$ where:
505 1& \mbox{if sensor $j$ is active during round $t$,} \\
506 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
510 We define the Overcoverage variable $\Theta_{t,p}$ as:
512 \Theta_{t,p} = \left \{
514 0 & \mbox{if the primary point $p$}\\
515 & \mbox{is not covered during round $t$,}\\
516 \left( \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} * X_{t,j} \right)- 1 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
520 More precisely, $\Theta_{t,p}$ represents the number of active sensor nodes
521 minus one that cover the primary point $p$ during round $t$. The
522 Undercoverage variable $U_{t,p}$ of the primary point $p$ during round $t$ is
527 1 &\mbox{if the primary point $p$ is not covered during round $t$,} \\
528 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
533 Our coverage optimization problem can then be formulated as follows:
535 \min \sum_{t=1}^{T} \sum_{p=1}^{|P|} \left(W_{\theta}* \Theta_{t,p} + W_{U} * U_{t,p} \right) \label{eq15}
540 \sum_{j=1}^{|J|} \alpha_{j,p} * X_{t,j} = \Theta_{t,p} - U_{t,p} + 1 \label{eq16} \hspace{6 mm} \forall p \in P, t = 1,\dots,T
544 \sum_{t=1}^{T} X_{t,j} \leq \floor*{RE_{j}/E_{R}} \hspace{10 mm}\forall j \in J\hspace{6 mm}
549 X_{t,j} \in \lbrace0,1\rbrace, \hspace{10 mm} \forall j \in J, t = 1,\dots,T \label{eq17}
553 U_{t,p} \in \lbrace0,1\rbrace, \hspace{10 mm}\forall p \in P, t = 1,\dots,T \label{eq18}
557 \Theta_{t,p} \geq 0 \hspace{10 mm}\forall p \in P, t = 1,\dots,T \label{eq178}
561 \item $X_{t,j}$: indicates whether or not the sensor $j$ is actively sensing
562 during round $t$ (1 if yes and 0 if not);
563 \item $\Theta_{t,p}$ - {\it overcoverage}: the number of sensors minus one that
564 are covering the primary point $p$ during round $t$;
565 \item $U_{t,p}$ - {\it undercoverage}: indicates whether or not the primary
566 point $p$ is being covered during round $t$ (1 if not covered and 0 if
570 The first group of constraints indicates that some primary point $p$ should be
571 covered by at least one sensor and, if it is not always the case, overcoverage
572 and undercoverage variables help balancing the restriction equations by taking
573 positive values. The constraint given by equation~(\ref{eq144}) guarantees that
574 the sensor has enough energy ($RE_j$ corresponds to its remaining energy) to be
575 alive during the selected rounds knowing that $E_{R}$ is the amount of energy
576 required to be alive during one round.
578 There are two main objectives. First, we limit the overcoverage of primary
579 points in order to activate a minimum number of sensors. Second we prevent the
580 absence of monitoring on some parts of the subregion by minimizing the
581 undercoverage. The weights $W_\theta$ and $W_U$ must be properly chosen so as
582 to guarantee that the maximum number of points are covered during each round.
583 In our simulations, priority is given to the coverage by choosing $W_{U}$ very
584 large compared to $W_{\theta}$.
586 The size of the problem depends on the number of variables and constraints. The
587 number of variables is linked to the number of alive sensors $A \subseteq J$,
588 the number of rounds $T$, and the number of primary points $P$. Thus the
589 integer program contains $A*T$ variables of type $X_{t,j}$, $P*T$ overcoverage
590 variables and $P*T$ undercoverage variables. The number of constraints is equal
591 to $P*T$ (for constraints (\ref{eq16})) $+$ $A$ (for constraints (\ref{eq144})).
594 \subsection{Sensing phase}
596 The sensing phase consists of $T$ rounds. Each sensor node in the subregion will
597 receive an Active-Sleep packet from WSNL, informing it to stay awake or to go to
598 sleep for each round of the sensing phase. Algorithm~\ref{alg:MuDiLCO}, which
599 will be executed by each sensor node~$s_j$ at the beginning of a period,
600 explains how the Active-Sleep packet is obtained.
603 \section{Experimental framework}
606 \subsection{Simulation setup}
608 We conducted a series of simulations to evaluate the efficiency and the
609 relevance of our approach, using the discrete event simulator OMNeT++
610 \cite{varga}. The simulation parameters are summarized in Table~\ref{table3}.
611 Each experiment for a network is run over 25~different random topologies and the
612 results presented hereafter are the average of these 25 runs. We performed
613 simulations for five different densities varying from 50 to 250~nodes deployed
614 over a $50 \times 25~m^2 $ sensing field. More precisely, the deployment is
615 controlled at a coarse scale in order to ensure that the deployed nodes can
616 cover the sensing field with the given sensing range.
619 \caption{Relevant parameters for network initializing.}
623 Parameter & Value \\ [0.5ex]
625 Sensing field size & $(50 \times 25)~m^2 $ \\
626 Network size & 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250~nodes \\
627 Initial energy & 500-700~joules \\
628 Sensing time for one round & 60 Minutes \\
629 $E_{R}$ & 36 Joules\\
637 Our protocol is declined into four versions: MuDiLCO-1, MuDiLCO-3, MuDiLCO-5,
638 and MuDiLCO-7, corresponding respectively to $T=1,3,5,7$ ($T$ the number of
639 rounds in one sensing period). Since the time resolution may be prohibitive when
640 the size of the problem increases, a time limit threshold has been fixed when
641 solving large instances. In these cases, the solver returns the best solution
642 found, which is not necessary the optimal one. In practice, we only set time
643 limit values for $T=5$ and $T=7$. In fact, for $T=5$ we limited the time for
644 250~nodes, whereas for $T=7$ it was for the three largest network sizes.
645 Therefore we used the following values (in second): 0.03 for 250~nodes when
646 $T=5$, while for $T=7$ we chose 0.03, 0.06, and 0.08 for respectively 150, 200,
647 and 250~nodes. These time limit thresholds have been set empirically. The basic
648 idea is to consider the average execution time to solve the integer programs to
649 optimality for 100 nodes and then to adjust the time linearly according to the
650 increasing network size. After that, this threshold value is increased if
651 necessary so that the solver is able to deliver a feasible solution within the
652 time limit. In fact, selecting the optimal values for the time limits will be
653 investigated in the future.
655 In the following, we will make comparisons with two other methods. The first
656 method, called DESK and proposed by \cite{ChinhVu}, is a fully distributed
657 coverage algorithm. The second method, called GAF~\cite{xu2001geography},
658 consists in dividing the region into fixed squares. During the decision phase,
659 in each square, one sensor is then chosen to remain active during the sensing
662 Some preliminary experiments were performed to study the choice of the number of
663 subregions which subdivides the sensing field, considering different network
664 sizes. They show that as the number of subregions increases, so does the network
665 lifetime. Moreover, it makes the MuDiLCO protocol more robust against random
666 network disconnection due to node failures. However, too many subdivisions
667 reduce the advantage of the optimization. In fact, there is a balance between
668 the benefit from the optimization and the execution time needed to solve it. In
669 the following we have set the number of subregions to~16 \textcolor{blue}{as
670 recommended in~\cite{idrees2015distributed}}.
672 \subsection{Energy model}
673 \textcolor{blue}{The energy consumption model is detailed
674 in~\cite{raghunathan2002energy}. It is based on the model proposed
675 by~\cite{ChinhVu}. We refer to the sensor node Medusa~II which uses an Atmels
676 AVR ATmega103L microcontroller~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} to use numerical
680 \subsection{Energy model}
682 We use an energy consumption model proposed by~\cite{ChinhVu} and based on
683 \cite{raghunathan2002energy} with slight modifications. The energy consumption
684 for sending/receiving the packets is added, whereas the part related to the
685 sensing range is removed because we consider a fixed sensing range.
687 For our energy consumption model, we refer to the sensor node Medusa~II which
688 uses an Atmels AVR ATmega103L microcontroller~\cite{raghunathan2002energy}. The
689 typical architecture of a sensor is composed of four subsystems: the MCU
690 subsystem which is capable of computation, communication subsystem (radio) which
691 is responsible for transmitting/receiving messages, the sensing subsystem that
692 collects data, and the power supply which powers the complete sensor node
693 \cite{raghunathan2002energy}. Each of the first three subsystems can be turned
694 on or off depending on the current status of the sensor. Energy consumption
695 (expressed in milliWatt per second) for the different status of the sensor is
696 summarized in Table~\ref{table4}.
699 \caption{The Energy Consumption Model}
701 \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|}
703 Sensor status & MCU & Radio & Sensing & Power (mW) \\ [0.5ex]
705 LISTENING & on & on & on & 20.05 \\
707 ACTIVE & on & off & on & 9.72 \\
709 SLEEP & off & off & off & 0.02 \\
711 COMPUTATION & on & on & on & 26.83 \\
718 For the sake of simplicity we ignore the energy needed to turn on the radio, to
719 start up the sensor node, to move from one status to another, etc.
720 Thus, when a sensor becomes active (i.e., it has already chosen its status), it
721 can turn its radio off to save battery. MuDiLCO uses two types of packets for
722 communication. The size of the INFO packet and Active-Sleep packet are 112~bits
723 and 24~bits respectively. The value of energy spent to send a 1-bit-content
724 message is obtained by using the equation in ~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} to
725 calculate the energy cost for transmitting messages and we propose the same
726 value for receiving the packets. The energy needed to send or receive a 1-bit
727 packet is equal to 0.2575~mW.
729 The initial energy of each node is randomly set in the interval $[500;700]$. A
730 sensor node will not participate in the next round if its remaining energy is
731 less than $E_{R}=36~\mbox{Joules}$, the minimum energy needed for the node to
732 stay alive during one round. This value has been computed by multiplying the
733 energy consumed in active state (9.72 mW) by the time in second for one round
734 (3600 seconds). According to the interval of initial energy, a sensor may be
735 alive during at most 20 rounds.
740 \textcolor{blue}{To evaluate our approach we consider the performance metrics
741 detailed in~\cite{idrees2015distributed}, which are: Coverage Ratio, Network
742 Lifetime and Energy Consumption. Compared to the previous definitions,
743 formulations of Coverage Ratio and Energy Consumption are enriched with the
748 \item {{\bf Coverage Ratio (CR)}:} the coverage ratio measures how much of the
749 area of a sensor field is covered. In our case, the sensing field is
750 represented as a connected grid of points and we use each grid point as a
751 sample point to compute the coverage. The coverage ratio can be calculated by:
754 \mbox{CR}(\%) = \frac{\mbox{$n^t$}}{\mbox{$N$}} \times 100,
756 where $n^t$ is the number of covered grid points by the active sensors of all
757 subregions during round $t$ in the current sensing phase and $N$ is the total
758 number of grid points in the sensing field of the network. In our simulations $N
759 = 51 \times 26 = 1326$ grid points.
761 \item{{\bf Number of Active Sensors Ratio (ASR)}:} it is important to have as
762 few active nodes as possible in each round, in order to minimize the
763 communication overhead and maximize the network lifetime. The Active Sensors
764 Ratio is defined as follows:
766 \scriptsize \mbox{ASR}(\%) = \frac{\sum\limits_{r=1}^R
767 \mbox{$A_r^t$}}{\mbox{$|J|$}} \times 100,
769 where $A_r^t$ is the number of active sensors in the subregion $r$ during round
770 $t$ in the current sensing phase, $|J|$ is the total number of sensors in the
771 network, and $R$ is the total number of subregions in the network.
773 \item {{\bf Network Lifetime}:} we define the network lifetime as the time until
774 the coverage ratio drops below a predefined threshold. We denote by
775 $Lifetime_{95}$ (respectively $Lifetime_{50}$) the amount of time during which
776 the network can satisfy an area coverage greater than $95\%$ (respectively
777 $50\%$). We assume that the network is alive until all nodes have been drained
778 of their energy or the sensor network becomes disconnected. Network
779 connectivity is important because an active sensor node without connectivity
780 towards a base station cannot transmit information on an event in the area
783 \item {{\bf Energy Consumption (EC)}:} the average energy consumption can be
784 seen as the total energy consumed by the sensors during the $Lifetime_{95}$ or
785 $Lifetime_{50}$ divided by the number of rounds. EC can be computed as
790 \mbox{EC} = \frac{\sum\limits_{m=1}^{M} \left[ \left( E^{\mbox{com}}_m+E^{\mbox{list}}_m+E^{\mbox{comp}}_m \right) +\sum\limits_{t=1}^{T_m} \left( E^{a}_t+E^{s}_t \right) \right]}{\sum\limits_{m=1}^{M} T_m},
793 where $M$ is the number of periods and $T_m$ the number of rounds in a
794 period~$m$, both during $Lifetime_{95}$ or $Lifetime_{50}$. The total energy
795 consumed by the sensors (EC) comes through taking into consideration four main
796 energy factors. The first one , denoted $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{com}}_m$,
797 represents the energy consumption spent by all the nodes for wireless
798 communications during period $m$. $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{list}}_m$, the next
799 factor, corresponds to the energy consumed by the sensors in LISTENING status
800 before receiving the decision to go active or sleep in period $m$.
801 $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{comp}}_m$ refers to the energy needed by all the leader
802 nodes to solve the integer program during a period. Finally, $E^a_t$ and $E^s_t$
803 indicate the energy consumed by the whole network in round $t$.
805 %\item {Network Lifetime:} we have defined the network lifetime as the time until all
806 %nodes have been drained of their energy or each sensor network monitoring an area has become disconnected.
812 \item {{\bf Execution Time}:} a sensor node has limited energy resources and
813 computing power, therefore it is important that the proposed algorithm has the
814 shortest possible execution time. The energy of a sensor node must be mainly
815 used for the sensing phase, not for the pre-sensing ones.
817 \item {{\bf Stopped simulation runs}:} a simulation ends when the sensor network
818 becomes disconnected (some nodes are dead and are not able to send information
819 to the base station). We report the number of simulations that are stopped due
820 to network disconnections and for which round it occurs.
825 \section{Experimental results and analysis}
828 \subsection{Performance analysis for different number of primary points}
829 \label{ch4:sec:04:06}
831 In this section, we study the performance of MuDiLCO-1 approach (with only one
832 round as in~\cite{idrees2015distributed}) for different numbers of primary
833 points. The objective of this comparison is to select the suitable number of
834 primary points to be used by a MuDiLCO protocol. In this comparison, MuDiLCO-1
835 protocol is used with five primary point models, each model corresponding to a
836 number of primary points, which are called Model-5 (it uses 5 primary points),
837 Model-9, Model-13, Model-17, and Model-21. \textcolor{blue}{Note
839 presented in~\cite{idrees2015distributed} correspond to Model-13 (13 primary
842 \subsubsection{Coverage ratio}
844 Figure~\ref{Figures/ch4/R2/CR} shows the average coverage ratio for 150 deployed
845 nodes. As can be seen, at the beginning the models which use a larger number of
846 primary points provide slightly better coverage ratios, but latter they are the
847 worst. Moreover, when the number of periods increases, the coverage ratio
848 produced by all models decrease due to dead nodes. However, Model-5 is the one
849 with the slowest decrease due to lower numbers of active sensors in the earlier
850 periods. Overall this model is slightly more efficient than the other ones,
851 because it offers a good coverage ratio for a larger number of periods.
855 \includegraphics[scale=0.5] {R2/CR.pdf}
856 \caption{Coverage ratio for 150 deployed nodes}
857 \label{Figures/ch4/R2/CR}
860 \subsubsection{Network lifetime}
862 Finally, we study the effect of increasing the number of primary points on the
863 lifetime of the network. As highlighted by Figures~\ref{Figures/ch4/R2/LT}(a)
864 and \ref{Figures/ch4/R2/LT}(b), the network lifetime obviously increases when
865 the size of the network increases, with Model-5 which leads to the largest
866 lifetime improvement.
871 \includegraphics[scale=0.5]{R2/LT95.pdf}\\~ ~ ~ ~ ~(a) \\
873 \includegraphics[scale=0.5]{R2/LT50.pdf}\\~ ~ ~ ~ ~(b)
875 \caption{Network lifetime for (a) $Lifetime_{95}$ and (b) $Lifetime_{50}$}
876 \label{Figures/ch4/R2/LT}
879 Comparison shows that Model-5, which uses less number of primary points, is the
880 best one because it is less energy consuming during the network lifetime. It is
881 also the better one from the point of view of coverage ratio, as stated
882 before. Therefore, we have chosen the model with five primary points for all the
883 experiments presented thereafter.
885 \subsection{Coverage ratio}
887 Figure~\ref{fig3} shows the average coverage ratio for 150 deployed nodes. We
888 can notice that for the first 30~rounds both DESK and GAF provide a coverage
889 which is a little bit better than the one of MuDiLCO. This is due to the fact
890 that, in comparison with MuDiLCO which uses optimization to put in SLEEP status
891 redundant sensors, more sensor nodes remain active with DESK and GAF. As a
892 consequence, when the number of rounds increases, a larger number of node
893 failures can be observed in DESK and GAF, resulting in a faster decrease of the
894 coverage ratio. Furthermore, our protocol allows to maintain a coverage ratio
895 greater than 50\% for far more rounds. Overall, the proposed sensor activity
896 scheduling based on optimization in MuDiLCO maintains higher coverage ratios of
897 the area of interest for a larger number of rounds. It also means that MuDiLCO
898 saves more energy, with less dead nodes, at most for several rounds, and thus
899 should extend the network lifetime. MuDiLCO-7 seems to have most of the time
900 the best coverage ratio up to round~80, after that MuDiLCO-5 is slightly better.
904 \includegraphics[scale=0.5] {F/CR.pdf}
905 \caption{Average coverage ratio for 150 deployed nodes}
909 \subsection{Active sensors ratio}
911 It is crucial to have as few active nodes as possible in each round, in order to
912 minimize the communication overhead and maximize the network
913 lifetime. Figure~\ref{fig4} presents the active sensor ratio for 150 deployed
914 nodes all along the network lifetime. It appears that up to round thirteen, DESK
915 and GAF have respectively 37.6\% and 44.8\% of nodes in ACTIVE status, whereas
916 MuDiLCO clearly outperforms them with only 24.8\% of active nodes. Obviously,
917 in that case DESK and GAF have less active nodes, since they have activated many
918 nodes at the beginning. Anyway, MuDiLCO activates the available nodes in a more
923 \includegraphics[scale=0.5]{F/ASR.pdf}
924 \caption{Active sensors ratio for 150 deployed nodes}
928 \subsection{Stopped simulation runs}
930 A simulation ends when the sensor network becomes disconnected (some nodes are
931 dead and are not able to send information to the base station). We report the
932 number of simulations that are stopped due to network disconnections and for
933 which round it occurs. Figure~\ref{fig6} reports the cumulative percentage of
934 stopped simulations runs per round for 150 deployed nodes. This figure gives
935 the break point for each method. DESK stops first, after approximately
936 45~rounds, because it consumes the more energy by turning on a large number of
937 redundant nodes during the sensing phase. GAF stops secondly for the same reason
938 than DESK. Let us emphasize that the simulation continues as long as a network
939 in a subregion is still connected.
943 \includegraphics[scale=0.5]{F/SR.pdf}
944 \caption{Cumulative percentage of stopped simulation runs for 150 deployed nodes}
948 \subsection{Energy consumption} \label{subsec:EC}
950 We measure the energy consumed by the sensors during the communication,
951 listening, computation, active, and sleep status for different network densities
952 and compare it with the two other methods. Figures~\ref{fig7}(a)
953 and~\ref{fig7}(b) illustrate the energy consumption, considering different
954 network sizes, for $Lifetime_{95}$ and $Lifetime_{50}$.
959 \parbox{9.5cm}{\includegraphics[scale=0.5]{F/EC95.pdf}} & (a) \\
961 \parbox{9.5cm}{\includegraphics[scale=0.5]{F/EC50.pdf}} & (b)
963 \caption{Energy consumption for (a) $Lifetime_{95}$ and
968 The results show that MuDiLCO is the most competitive from the energy
969 consumption point of view. The other approaches have a high energy consumption
970 due to activating a larger number of redundant nodes as well as the energy
971 consumed during the different status of the sensor node.
973 Energy consumption increases with the size of the networks and the number of
974 rounds. The curve Unlimited-MuDiLCO-7 shows that energy consumption due to the
975 time spent to optimally solve the integer program increases drastically with the
976 size of the network. When the resolution time is limited for large network
977 sizes, the energy consumption remains of the same order whatever the MuDiLCO
978 version. As can be seen with MuDiLCO-7.
980 \subsection{Execution time}
983 We observe the impact of the network size and of the number of rounds on the
984 computation time. Figure~\ref{fig77} gives the average execution times in
985 seconds (needed to solve the optimization problem) for different values of
986 $T$. The modeling language for Mathematical Programming (AMPL)~\cite{AMPL} is
987 employed to generate the Mixed Integer Linear Program instance in a standard
988 format, which is then read and solved by the optimization solver GLPK (GNU
989 linear Programming Kit available in the public domain) \cite{glpk} through a
990 Branch-and-Bound method. The original execution time is computed on a laptop
991 DELL with Intel Core~i3~2370~M (2.4 GHz) processor (2 cores) and the MIPS
992 (Million Instructions Per Second) rate equal to 35330. To be consistent with the
993 use of a sensor node with Atmels AVR ATmega103L microcontroller (6 MHz) and a
994 MIPS rate equal to 6 to run the optimization resolution, this time is multiplied
995 by 2944.2 $\left( \frac{35330}{2} \times \frac{1}{6} \right)$ and reported on
996 Figure~\ref{fig77} for different network sizes.
1000 \includegraphics[scale=0.5]{F/T.pdf}
1001 \caption{Execution Time (in seconds)}
1005 As expected, the execution time increases with the number of rounds $T$ taken
1006 into account to schedule the sensing phase. Obviously, the number of variables
1007 and constraints of the integer program increases with $T$, as explained in
1008 section~\ref{mom}, the times obtained for $T=1,3$ or $5$ seem bearable. But for
1009 $T=7$, without any limitation of the time, they become quickly unsuitable for a
1010 sensor node, especially when the sensor network size increases as demonstrated
1011 by Unlimited-MuDiLCO-7. Notice that for 250 nodes, we also limited the
1012 execution time for $T=5$, otherwise the execution time, denoted by
1013 Unlimited-MuDiLCO-5, is also above MuDiLCO-7. On the one hand, a large value
1014 for $T$ permits to reduce the energy-overhead due to the three pre-sensing
1015 phases, on the other hand a leader node may waste a considerable amount of
1016 energy to solve the optimization problem. Thus, limiting the time resolution for
1017 large instances allows to reduce the energy consumption without any impact on
1018 the coverage quality.
1020 \subsection{Network lifetime}
1022 The next two figures, Figures~\ref{fig8}(a) and \ref{fig8}(b), illustrate the
1023 network lifetime for different network sizes, respectively for $Lifetime_{95}$
1024 and $Lifetime_{50}$. Both figures show that the network lifetime increases
1025 together with the number of sensor nodes, whatever the protocol, thanks to the
1026 node density which results in more and more redundant nodes that can be
1027 deactivated and thus save energy. Compared to the other approaches, our MuDiLCO
1028 protocol maximizes the lifetime of the network. In particular the gain in
1029 lifetime for a coverage over 95\%, and a network of 250~nodes, is greater than
1030 43\% when switching from GAF to MuDiLCO-5.
1031 %The lower performance that can be observed for MuDiLCO-7 in case
1032 %of $Lifetime_{95}$ with large wireless sensor networks results from the
1033 %difficulty of the optimization problem to be solved by the integer program.
1034 %This point was already noticed in subsection \ref{subsec:EC} devoted to the
1035 %energy consumption, since network lifetime and energy consumption are directly
1037 Overall, it clearly appears that computing a scheduling for several rounds is
1038 possible and relevant, providing that the execution time to solve the
1039 optimization problem for large instances is limited. Notice that rather than
1040 limiting the execution time, similar results might be obtained by replacing the
1041 computation of the exact solution with the finding of a suboptimal one using a
1042 heuristic approach. For our simulation setup and considering the different
1043 metrics, MuDiLCO-5 seems to be the best suited method compared to MuDiLCO-7.
1048 \parbox{9.5cm}{\includegraphics[scale=0.5125]{F/LT95.pdf}} & (a) \\
1050 \parbox{9.5cm}{\includegraphics[scale=0.5125]{F/LT50.pdf}} & (b)
1052 \caption{Network lifetime for (a) $Lifetime_{95}$ and
1053 (b) $Lifetime_{50}$}
1057 \section{Conclusion and future works}
1058 \label{sec:conclusion}
1060 We have addressed the problem of the coverage and of the lifetime optimization
1061 in wireless sensor networks. This is a key issue as sensor nodes have limited
1062 resources in terms of memory, energy, and computational power. To cope with this
1063 problem, the field of sensing is divided into smaller subregions using the
1064 concept of divide-and-conquer method, and then we propose a protocol which
1065 optimizes coverage and lifetime performances in each subregion. Our protocol,
1066 called MuDiLCO (Multiround Distributed Lifetime Coverage Optimization) combines
1067 two efficient techniques: network leader election and sensor activity
1068 scheduling. The activity scheduling in each subregion works in periods, where
1069 each period consists of four phases: (i) Information Exchange, (ii) Leader
1070 Election, (iii) Decision Phase to plan the activity of the sensors over $T$
1071 rounds, (iv) Sensing Phase itself divided into $T$ rounds.
1073 Simulations results show the relevance of the proposed protocol in terms of
1074 lifetime, coverage ratio, active sensors ratio, energy consumption, execution
1075 time. Indeed, when dealing with large wireless sensor networks, a distributed
1076 approach, like the one we propose, allows to reduce the difficulty of a single
1077 global optimization problem by partitioning it in many smaller problems, one per
1078 subregion, that can be solved more easily. Furthermore, results also show that
1079 to plan the activity of sensors for large network sizes, an approach to obtain a
1080 near optimal solution is needed. Indeed, an exact resolution of the resulting
1081 optimization problem leads to prohibitive computation times and thus to an
1082 excessive energy consumption.
1084 %In future work, we plan to study and propose adjustable sensing range coverage optimization protocol, which computes all active sensor schedules in one time, by using
1085 %optimization methods. This protocol can prolong the network lifetime by minimizing the number of the active sensor nodes near the borders by optimizing the sensing range of sensor nodes.
1086 % use section* for acknowledgement
1088 \section*{Acknowledgment}
1089 This work is partially funded by the Labex ACTION program (contract
1090 ANR-11-LABX-01-01). Ali Kadhum IDREES would like to gratefully acknowledge the
1091 University of Babylon - Iraq for the financial support and Campus France (The
1092 French national agency for the promotion of higher education, international
1093 student services, and international mobility) for the support received when he
1094 was Ph.D. student in France.
1095 %, and the University ofFranche-Comt\'e - France for all the support in France.
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