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25 %\title{Authors' Instructions \subtitle{Preparation of Camera-Ready Contributions to SCITEPRESS Proceedings} }
27 \title{Distributed Lifetime Coverage Optimization Protocol \\in Wireless Sensor Networks}
29 \author{\authorname{Ali Kadhum Idrees, Karine Deschinkel, Michel Salomon, and Rapha\"el Couturier}
30 \affiliation{FEMTO-ST Institute, UMR 6174 CNRS, University of Franche-Comt\'e, Belfort, France}
31 %\affiliation{\sup{2}Department of Computing, Main University, MySecondTown, MyCountry}
32 \email{ali.idness@edu.univ-fcomte.fr, $\lbrace$karine.deschinkel, michel.salomon, raphael.couturier$\rbrace$@univ-fcomte.fr}
33 %\email{\{f\_author, s\_author\}@ips.xyz.edu, t\_author@dc.mu.edu}
36 \keywords{Wireless Sensor Networks, Area Coverage, Network lifetime,
37 Optimization, Scheduling.}
39 \abstract{ One of the main research challenges faced in Wireless Sensor Networks
40 (WSNs) is to preserve continuously and effectively the coverage of an area (or
41 region) of interest to be monitored, while simultaneously preventing as much
42 as possible a network failure due to battery-depleted nodes. In this paper we
43 propose a protocol, called Distributed Lifetime Coverage Optimization protocol
44 (DiLCO), which maintains the coverage and improves the lifetime of a wireless
45 sensor network. First, we partition the area of interest into subregions using
46 a classical divide-and-conquer method. Our DiLCO protocol is then distributed
47 on the sensor nodes in each subregion in a second step. To fulfill our
48 objective, the proposed protocol combines two effective techniques: a leader
49 election in each subregion, followed by an optimization-based node activity
50 scheduling performed by each elected leader. This two-step process takes
51 place periodically, in order to choose a small set of nodes remaining active
52 for sensing during a time slot. Each set is built to ensure coverage at a low
53 energy cost, allowing to optimize the network lifetime. More precisely, a
54 period consists of four phases: (i)~Information Exchange, (ii)~Leader
55 Election, (iii)~Decision, and (iv)~Sensing. The decision process, which
56 results in an activity scheduling vector, is carried out by a leader node
57 through the solving of an integer program. In comparison with some other
58 protocols, the simulations done using the discrete event simulator OMNeT++
59 show that our approach is able to increase the WSN lifetime and provides
60 improved coverage performance. }
62 \onecolumn \maketitle \normalsize \vfill
64 \section{\uppercase{Introduction}}
65 \label{sec:introduction}
68 Energy efficiency is a crucial issue in wireless sensor networks since sensory
69 consumption, in order to maximize the network lifetime, represents the major
70 difficulty when designing WSNs. As a consequence, one of the scientific research
71 challenges in WSNs, which has been addressed by a large amount of literature
72 during the last few years, is the design of energy efficient approaches for
73 coverage and connectivity~\cite{conti2014mobile}. Coverage reflects how well a
74 sensor field is monitored. On the one hand we want to monitor the area of
75 interest in the most efficient way~\cite{Nayak04}. On the other hand we want to
76 use as little energy as possible. Sensor nodes are battery-powered with no
77 means of recharging or replacing, usually due to environmental (hostile or
78 unpractical environments) or cost reasons. Therefore, it is desired that the
79 WSNs are deployed with high densities so as to exploit the overlapping sensing
80 regions of some sensor nodes to save energy by turning off some of them during
81 the sensing phase to prolong the network lifetime.
83 In this paper we design a protocol that focuses on the area coverage problem
84 with the objective of maximizing the network lifetime. Our proposition, the
85 Distributed Lifetime Coverage Optimization (DILCO) protocol, maintains the
86 coverage and improves the lifetime in WSNs. The area of interest is first
87 divided into subregions using a divide-and-conquer algorithm and an activity
88 scheduling for sensor nodes is then planned by the elected leader in each
89 subregion. In fact, the nodes in a subregion can be seen as a cluster where each
90 node sends sensing data to the cluster head or the sink node. Furthermore, the
91 activities in a subregion/cluster can continue even if another cluster stops due
92 to too many node failures. Our DiLCO protocol considers periods, where a period
93 starts with a discovery phase to exchange information between sensors of the
94 same subregion, in order to choose in a suitable manner a sensor node (the
95 leader) to carry out the coverage strategy. In each subregion the activation of
96 the sensors for the sensing phase of the current period is obtained by solving
97 an integer program. The resulting activation vector is broadcast by a leader
98 to every node of its subregion.
100 The remainder of the paper continues with Section~\ref{sec:Literature Review}
101 where a review of some related works is presented. The next section describes
102 the DiLCO protocol, followed in Section~\ref{cp} by the coverage model
103 formulation which is used to schedule the activation of
104 sensors. Section~\ref{sec:Simulation Results and Analysis} shows the simulation
105 results. The paper ends with a conclusion and some suggestions for further work
106 in Section~\ref{sec:Conclusion and Future Works}.
108 \section{\uppercase{Literature Review}}
109 \label{sec:Literature Review}
111 \noindent In this section, we summarize some related works regarding the coverage
112 problem and distinguish our DiLCO protocol from the works presented in the
115 The most discussed coverage problems in literature
116 can be classified into three types \cite{li2013survey}: area coverage \cite{Misra} where
117 every point inside an area is to be monitored, target coverage \cite{yang2014novel} where the main
118 objective is to cover only a finite number of discrete points called targets,
119 and barrier coverage \cite{Kumar:2005}\cite{kim2013maximum} to prevent intruders from entering into the region of interest. In \cite{Deng2012} authors transform the area coverage problem to the target coverage problem taking into account the intersection points among disks of sensors nodes or between disk of sensor nodes and boundaries.
120 {\it In DiLCO protocol, the area coverage, i.e. the coverage of every point in
121 the sensing region, is transformed to the coverage of a fraction of points
122 called primary points. }
125 The major approach to extend network lifetime while preserving coverage is to
126 divide/organize the sensors into a suitable number of set covers (disjoint or
127 non-disjoint), where each set completely covers a region of interest, and to
128 activate these set covers successively. The network activity can be planned in
129 advance and scheduled for the entire network lifetime or organized in periods,
130 and the set of active sensor nodes is decided at the beginning of each period \cite{ling2009energy}.
131 Active node selection is determined based on the problem requirements (e.g. area
132 monitoring, connectivity, power efficiency). For instance, Jaggi et al. \cite{jaggi2006}
133 address the problem of maximizing network lifetime by dividing sensors into the maximum number of disjoint subsets such that each subset can ensure both coverage and connectivity. A greedy algorithm is applied once to solve this problem and the computed sets are activated in succession to achieve the desired network lifetime.
134 Vu \cite{chin2007}, Padmatvathy et al. \cite{pc10}, propose algorithms working in a periodic fashion where a cover set is computed at the beginning of each period.
135 {\it Motivated by these works, DiLCO protocol works in periods, where each period contains a preliminary
136 phase for information exchange and decisions, followed by a sensing phase
137 where one cover set is in charge of the sensing task.}
139 Various approaches, including centralized, or distributed
140 algorithms, have been proposed to extend the network lifetime.
141 %For instance, in order to hide the occurrence of faults, or the sudden unavailability of
142 %sensor nodes, some distributed algorithms have been developed in~\cite{Gallais06,Tian02,Ye03,Zhang05,HeinzelmanCB02}.
143 In distributed algorithms~\cite{yangnovel,ChinhVu,qu2013distributed},
144 information is disseminated throughout the network and sensors decide
145 cooperatively by communicating with their neighbors which of them will remain in
146 sleep mode for a certain period of time. The centralized
147 algorithms~\cite{cardei2005improving,zorbas2010solving,pujari2011high} always
148 provide nearly or close to optimal solution since the algorithm has global view
149 of the whole network. But such a method has the disadvantage of requiring high
150 communication costs, since the node (located at the base station) making the
151 decision needs information from all the sensor nodes in the area and the amount of information can be huge.
152 {\it In order to be suitable for large-scale network, in the DiLCO protocol, the area coverage is divided into several smaller
153 subregions, and in each one, a node called the leader is in charge for
154 selecting the active sensors for the current period.}
156 A large variety of coverage scheduling algorithms has been developed. Many of
157 the existing algorithms, dealing with the maximization of the number of cover
158 sets, are heuristics. These heuristics involve the construction of a cover set
159 by including in priority the sensor nodes which cover critical targets, that is
160 to say targets that are covered by the smallest number of sensors \cite{berman04,zorbas2010solving}. Other
161 approaches are based on mathematical programming formulations~\cite{cardei2005energy,5714480,pujari2011high,Yang2014} and dedicated
162 techniques (solving with a branch-and-bound algorithms available in optimization
163 solver). The problem is formulated as an optimization problem (maximization of
164 the lifetime or number of cover sets) under target coverage and energy
165 constraints. Column generation techniques, well-known and widely practiced
166 techniques for solving linear programs with too many variables, have also been
167 used~\cite{castano2013column,rossi2012exact,deschinkel2012column}. {\it In DiLCO protocol, each leader, in each subregion, solves an integer
168 program with a double objective consisting in minimizing the overcoverage and
169 limiting the undercoverage. This program is inspired from the work of
170 \cite{pedraza2006} where the objective is to maximize the number of cover
173 % ***** Part which must be rewritten - Start
175 % Start of Ali's papers catalog => there's no link between them or with our work
176 % (use of subregions; optimization based method; etc.)
178 Diongue and Thiare~\cite{diongue2013alarm} proposed an energy aware sleep
179 scheduling algorithm for lifetime maximization in wireless sensor networks
180 (ALARM). The proposed approach permits to schedule redundant nodes according to
181 the weibull distribution. This work did not analyze the ALARM scheme under the
184 Shi et al.~\cite{shi2009} modeled the Area Coverage Problem (ACP), which will be
185 changed into a set coverage problem. By using this model, they proposed an
186 Energy-Efficient central-Scheduling greedy algorithm, which can reduces energy
187 consumption and increases network lifetime, by selecting a appropriate subset of
188 sensor nodes to support the networks periodically.
190 In ~\cite{chenait2013distributed}, the authors presented a coverage-guaranteed
191 distributed sleep/wake scheduling scheme so ass to prolong network lifetime
192 while guaranteeing network coverage. This scheme mitigates scheduling process to
193 be more stable by avoiding useless transitions between states without affecting
194 the coverage level required by the application.
196 The work in~\cite{cheng2014achieving} presented a unified sensing architecture
197 for duty cycled sensor networks, called uSense, which comprises three ideas:
198 Asymmetric Architecture, Generic Switching and Global Scheduling. The objective
199 is to provide a flexible and efficient coverage in sensor networks.
201 In~\cite{ling2009energy}, the lifetime of a sensor node is divided into
202 epochs. At each epoch, the base station deduces the current sensing coverage
203 requirement from application or user request. It then applies the heuristic
204 algorithm in order to produce the set of active nodes which take the mission of
205 sensing during the current epoch. After that, the produced schedule is sent to
206 the sensor nodes in the network.
208 % What is the link between the previous work and this paragraph about DiLCO ?
212 Yang et al.~\cite{yang2014energy} investigated full area coverage problem under
213 the probabilistic sensing model in the sensor networks. They have studied the
214 relationship between the coverage of two adjacent points mathematically and then
215 convert the problem of full area coverage into point coverage problem. They
216 proposed $\varepsilon$-full area coverage optimization (FCO) algorithm to select
217 a subset of sensors to provide probabilistic area coverage dynamically so as to
218 extend the network lifetime.
220 The work proposed by \cite{qu2013distributed} considers the coverage problem in
221 WSNs where each sensor has variable sensing radius. The final objective is to
222 maximize the network coverage lifetime in WSNs.
224 % Same remark, no link with the two previous citations...
227 % ***** Part which must be rewritten - End
231 Some algorithms have been developed in ~\cite{yang2014energy,ChinhVu,vashistha2007energy,deschinkel2012column,shi2009,qu2013distributed,ling2009energy,xin2009area,cheng2014achieving,ling2009energy} to solve the area coverage problem so as to preserve coverage and prolong the network lifetime.
234 Yang et al.~\cite{yang2014energy} investigated full area coverage problem
235 under the probabilistic sensing model in the sensor networks. They have studied the relationship between the
236 coverage of two adjacent points mathematically and then convert the problem of full area coverage into point coverage problem. They proposed $\varepsilon$-full area coverage optimization (FCO) algorithm to select a subset
237 of sensors to provide probabilistic area coverage dynamically so as to extend the network lifetime.
240 Vu et al.~\cite{ChinhVu} proposed a localized and distributed greedy algorithm named DESK for generating non-disjoint cover sets which provide the k-area coverage for the whole network.
243 Qu et al.~\cite{qu2013distributed} developed a distributed algorithm using adjustable sensing sensors
244 for maintaining the full coverage of such sensor networks. The
245 algorithm contains two major parts: the first part aims at
246 providing $100\%$ coverage and the second part aims at saving
247 energy by decreasing the sensing radius.
249 Shi et al.~\cite{shi2009} modeled the Area Coverage Problem (ACP), which will be changed into a set coverage
250 problem. By using this model, they are proposed an Energy-Efficient central-Scheduling greedy algorithm, which can reduces energy consumption and increases network lifetime, by selecting a appropriate subset of sensor nodes to support the networks periodically.
252 The work in~\cite{cheng2014achieving} presented a unified sensing architecture for duty cycled sensor networks, called uSense, which comprises three ideas: Asymmetric Architecture, Generic Switching and Global Scheduling. The objective is to provide a flexible and efficient coverage in sensor networks.
254 In~\cite{ling2009energy}, the lifetime of
255 a sensor node is divided into epochs. At each epoch, the
256 base station deduces the current sensing coverage requirement
257 from application or user request. It then applies the heuristic algorithm in order to produce the set of active nodes which take the mission of sensing during the current epoch. After that, the produced schedule is sent to the sensor nodes in the network.
262 The work in ~\cite{vu2009delaunay} considered the area coverage problem for variable sensing radii in WSNs by improving the energy balancing heuristic proposed in ~\cite{wang2007energy} so that the area of interest can be full covered using Delaunay triangulation structure.
264 Diongue and Thiare~\cite{diongue2013alarm} proposed an energy aware sleep scheduling algorithm for lifetime maximization in wireless sensor networks (ALARM). The proposed approach permits to schedule redundant nodes according to the weibull distribution. This work did not analyze the ALARM scheme under the coverage problem.
267 In~\cite{xin2009area}, the authors proposed a circle intersection localized coverage algorithm
268 to maintain connectivity based on loose connectivity critical condition
269 . By using the connected coverage node set, it can maintain network
270 connection in the case which loose condition is not meet.
271 The authors in ~\cite{vashistha2007energy} addressed the full area coverage problem using information
272 coverage. They are proposed a low-complexity heuristic algorithm to obtain full area information covers (FAIC), which they refer to as Grid Based FAIC (GB-FAIC) algorithm. Using these FAICs, they are obtained the optimal schedule for applying the sensing activity of sensor nodes in order to
273 achieve increased sensing lifetime of the network.
280 In \cite{xu2001geography}, Xu et al. proposed a Geographical Adaptive Fidelity (GAF) algorithm, which uses geographic location information to divide the area of interest into fixed square grids. Within each grid, it keeps only one node staying awake to take the responsibility of sensing and communication.
282 The main contributions of our DiLCO Protocol can be summarized as follows:
283 (1) The distributed optimization over the subregions in the area of interest,
284 (2) The distributed dynamic leader election at each period by each sensor node in the subregion,
285 (3) The primary point coverage model to represent each sensor node in the network,
286 (4) The activity scheduling based optimization on the subregion, which are based on the primary point coverage model to activate as less number as possible of sensor nodes to take the mission of the coverage in each subregion, and (5) The improved energy consumption model.
289 The work presented in~\cite{luo2014parameterized,tian2014distributed} tries to solve the target coverage problem so as to extend the network lifetime since it is easy to verify the coverage status of discreet target.
290 %Je ne comprends pas la phrase ci-dessus
291 The work proposed in~\cite{kim2013maximum} considers the barrier-coverage problem in WSNs. The final goal is to maximize the network lifetime such that any penetration of the intruder is detected.
292 %inutile de parler de ce papier car il concerne barrier coverage
293 In \cite{ChinhVu}, the authors propose a localized and distributed greedy algorithm named DESK for generating non-disjoint cover sets which provide the k-coverage for the whole network.
294 Our Work in~\cite{idrees2014coverage} proposes a coverage optimization protocol to improve the lifetime in heterogeneous energy wireless sensor networks. In this work, the coverage protocol distributed in each sensor node in the subregion but the optimization take place over the the whole subregion. We are considered only distributing the coverage protocol over two subregions.
296 The work presented in ~\cite{Zhang} focuses on a distributed clustering method, which aims to extend the network lifetime, while the coverage is ensured.
298 The work proposed by \cite{qu2013distributed} considers the coverage problem in WSNs where each sensor has variable sensing radius. The final objective is to maximize the network coverage lifetime in WSNs.
302 Casta{\~n}o et al.~\cite{castano2013column} proposed a multilevel approach based on column generation (CG) to extend the network lifetime with connectivity and coverage constraints. They are included two heuristic methods within the CG framework so as to accelerate the solution process.
303 In \cite{diongue2013alarm}, diongue is proposed an energy Aware sLeep scheduling AlgoRithm for lifetime maximization in WSNs (ALARM) algorithm for coverage lifetime maximization in wireless sensor networks. ALARM is sensor node scheduling approach for lifetime maximization in WSNs in which it schedule redundant nodes according to the weibull distribution taking into consideration frequent nodes failure.
304 Yu et al.~\cite{yu2013cwsc} presented a connected k-coverage working sets construction
305 approach (CWSC) to maintain k-coverage and connectivity. This approach try to select the minimum number of connected sensor nodes that can provide k-coverage ($k \geq 1$).
306 In~\cite{cheng2014achieving}, the authors are presented a unified sensing architecture for duty cycled sensor networks, called uSense, which comprises three ideas: Asymmetric Architecture, Generic Switching and Global Scheduling. The objective is to provide a flexible and efficient coverage in sensor networks.
308 In~\cite{yang2013energy}, the authors are investigated full area coverage problem
309 under the probabilistic sensing model in the sensor networks. %They are designed $\varepsilon-$full area coverage optimization (FCO) algorithm to select a subset of sensors to provide probabilistic area coverage dynamically so as to extend the network lifetime.
310 In \cite{xu2001geography}, Xu et al. proposed a Geographical Adaptive Fidelity (GAF) algorithm, which uses geographic location information to divide the area of interest into fixed square grids. Within each grid, it keeps only one node staying awake to take the responsibility of sensing and communication.
312 The main contributions of our DiLCO Protocol can be summarized as follows:
313 (1) The distributed optimization over the subregions in the area of interest,
314 (2) The distributed dynamic leader election at each round by each sensor node in the subregion,
315 (3) The primary point coverage model to represent each sensor node in the network,
316 (4) The activity scheduling based optimization on the subregion, which are based on the primary point coverage model to activate as less number as possible of sensor nodes to take the mission of the coverage in each subregion,
317 (5) The improved energy consumption model.
321 \section{\uppercase{Description of the DiLCO protocol}}
322 \label{sec:The DiLCO Protocol Description}
324 \noindent In this section, we introduce the DiLCO protocol which is distributed
325 on each subregion in the area of interest. It is based on two efficient
326 techniques: network leader election and sensor activity scheduling for coverage
327 preservation and energy conservation, applied periodically to efficiently
328 maximize the lifetime in the network.
329 \iffalse The main features of our DiLCO protocol: i)It divides the area of
330 interest into subregions by using divide-and-conquer concept, ii)It requires
331 only the information of the nodes within the subregion, iii) it divides the
332 network lifetime into rounds, iv)It based on the autonomous distributed decision
333 by the nodes in the subregion to elect the Leader, v)It apply the activity
334 scheduling based optimization on the subregion, vi) it achieves an energy
335 consumption balancing among the nodes in the subregion by selecting different
336 nodes as a leader during the network lifetime, vii) It uses the optimization to
337 select the best representative set of sensors in the subregion by optimize the
338 coverage and the lifetime over the area of interest, viii)It uses our proposed
339 primary point coverage model, which represent the sensing range of the sensor as
340 a set of points, which are used by the our optimization algorithm, ix) It uses a
341 simple energy model that takes communication, sensing and computation energy
342 consumptions into account to evaluate the performance of our protocol.
345 \subsection{Assumptions and models}
347 \noindent We consider a sensor network composed of static nodes distributed
348 independently and uniformly at random. A high density deployment ensures a high
349 coverage ratio of the interested area at the start. The nodes are supposed to
350 have homogeneous characteristics from a communication and a processing point of
351 view, whereas they have heterogeneous energy provisions. Each node has access
352 to its location thanks, either to a hardware component (like a GPS unit), or a
353 location discovery algorithm.
355 \indent We consider a boolean disk coverage model which is the most widely used
356 sensor coverage model in the literature. Thus, since a sensor has a constant
357 sensing range $R_s$, every space points within a disk centered at a sensor with
358 the radius of the sensing range is said to be covered by this sensor. We also
359 assume that the communication range $R_c \geq 2R_s$. In fact, Zhang and
360 Zhou~\cite{Zhang05} proved that if the transmission range fulfills the previous
361 hypothesis, a complete coverage of a convex area implies connectivity among the
362 working nodes in the active mode.
364 \indent For each sensor we also define a set of points called primary
365 points~\cite{idrees2014coverage} to approximate the area coverage it provides,
366 rather than working with a continuous coverage. Thus, a sensing disk
367 corresponding to a sensor node is covered by its neighboring nodes if all its
368 primary points are covered. Obviously, the approximation of coverage is more or
369 less accurate according to the number of primary points.
372 By knowing the position (point center: ($p_x,p_y$)) of a wireless
373 sensor node and its $R_s$, we calculate the primary points directly
374 based on the proposed model. We use these primary points (that can be
375 increased or decreased if necessary) as references to ensure that the
376 monitored region of interest is covered by the selected set of
377 sensors, instead of using all the points in the area.
379 \indent We can calculate the positions of the selected primary
380 points in the circle disk of the sensing range of a wireless sensor
381 node (see figure~\ref{fig1}) as follows:\\
382 $(p_x,p_y)$ = point center of wireless sensor node\\
384 $X_2=( p_x + R_s * (1), p_y + R_s * (0) )$\\
385 $X_3=( p_x + R_s * (-1), p_y + R_s * (0)) $\\
386 $X_4=( p_x + R_s * (0), p_y + R_s * (1) )$\\
387 $X_5=( p_x + R_s * (0), p_y + R_s * (-1 )) $\\
388 $X_6= ( p_x + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{2}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (0)) $\\
389 $X_7=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{2}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (0))$\\
390 $X_8=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{2}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{2}}{2})) $\\
391 $X_9=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{2}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{2}}{2})) $\\
392 $X_{10}=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{2}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{2}}{2})) $\\
393 $X_{11}=( p_x + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{2}}{2}), p_y + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{2}}{2})) $\\
394 $X_{12}=( p_x + R_s * (0), p_y + R_s * (\frac{\sqrt{2}}{2})) $\\
395 $X_{13}=( p_x + R_s * (0), p_y + R_s * (\frac{-\sqrt{2}}{2})) $.
401 %\includegraphics[scale=0.20]{fig21.pdf}\\~ ~ ~ ~ ~(a)
402 %\includegraphics[scale=0.20]{fig22.pdf}\\~ ~ ~ ~ ~(b)
403 \includegraphics[scale=0.25]{principles13.pdf}%\\~ ~ ~ ~ ~(c)
404 %\includegraphics[scale=0.10]{fig25.pdf}\\~ ~ ~(d)
405 %\includegraphics[scale=0.10]{fig26.pdf}\\~ ~ ~(e)
406 %\includegraphics[scale=0.10]{fig27.pdf}\\~ ~ ~(f)
408 \caption{Wireless Sensor Node represented by 13 primary points}
409 %\caption{Wireless Sensor Node represented by (a)5, (b)9 and (c)13 primary points respectively}
415 \subsection{Main idea}
418 \noindent We start by applying a divide-and-conquer algorithm to partition the
419 area of interest into smaller areas called subregions and then our protocol is
420 executed simultaneously in each subregion.
424 \includegraphics[width=75mm]{FirstModel.pdf} % 70mm
425 \caption{DiLCO protocol}
429 As shown in Figure~\ref{fig2}, the proposed DiLCO protocol is a periodic
430 protocol where each period is decomposed into 4~phases: Information Exchange,
431 Leader Election, Decision, and Sensing. For each period there will be exactly
432 one cover set in charge of the sensing task. A periodic scheduling is
433 interesting because it enhances the robustness of the network against node
434 failures. First, a node that has not enough energy to complete a period, or
435 which fails before the decision is taken, will be excluded from the scheduling
436 process. Second, if a node fails later, whereas it was supposed to sense the
437 region of interest, it will only affect the quality of the coverage until the
438 definition of a new cover set in the next period. Constraints, like energy
439 consumption, can be easily taken into consideration since the sensors can update
440 and exchange their information during the first phase. Let us notice that the
441 phases before the sensing one (Information Exchange, Leader Election, and
442 Decision) are energy consuming for all the nodes, even nodes that will not be
443 retained by the leader to keep watch over the corresponding area.
445 During the execution of the DiLCO protocol, two kinds of packet will be used:
446 %\begin{enumerate}[(a)]
448 \item INFO packet: sent by each sensor node to all the nodes inside a same
449 subregion for information exchange.
450 \item ActiveSleep packet: sent by the leader to all the nodes in its subregion
451 to inform them to stay Active or to go Sleep during the sensing phase.
454 and each sensor node will have five possible status in the network:
455 %\begin{enumerate}[(a)]
457 \item LISTENING: sensor is waiting for a decision (to be active or not);
458 \item COMPUTATION: sensor applies the optimization process as leader;
459 \item ACTIVE: sensor is active;
460 \item SLEEP: sensor is turned off;
461 \item COMMUNICATION: sensor is transmitting or receiving packet.
465 An outline of the protocol implementation is given by Algorithm~\ref{alg:DiLCO}
466 which describes the execution of a period by a node (denoted by $s_j$ for a
467 sensor node indexed by $j$). At the beginning a node checks whether it has
468 enough energy to stay active during the next sensing phase. If yes, it exchanges
469 information with all the other nodes belonging to the same subregion: it
470 collects from each node its position coordinates, remaining energy ($RE_j$), ID,
471 and the number of one-hop neighbors still alive. Once the first phase is
472 completed, the nodes of a subregion choose a leader to take the decision based
473 on the following criteria with decreasing importance: larger number of
474 neighbors, larger remaining energy, and then in case of equality, larger index.
475 After that, if the sensor node is leader, it will execute the integer program
476 algorithm (see Section~\ref{cp}) which provides a set of sensors planned to be
477 active in the next sensing phase. As leader, it will send an Active-Sleep packet
478 to each sensor in the same subregion to indicate it if it has to be active or
479 not. Alternately, if the sensor is not the leader, it will wait for the
480 Active-Sleep packet to know its state for the coming sensing phase.
483 \subsubsection{Information Exchange Phase}
485 Each sensor node $j$ sends its position, remaining energy $RE_j$, and
486 the number of neighbors $NBR_j$ to all wireless sensor nodes in
487 its subregion by using an INFO packet and then listens to the packets
488 sent from other nodes. After that, each node will have information
489 about all the sensor nodes in the subregion. In our model, the
490 remaining energy corresponds to the time that a sensor can live in the
493 \subsubsection{Leader Election Phase}
494 This step includes choosing the Wireless Sensor Node Leader (WSNL),
495 which will be responsible for executing the coverage algorithm. Each
496 subregion in the area of interest will select its own WSNL
497 independently for each round. All the sensor nodes cooperate to
498 select WSNL. The nodes in the same subregion will select the leader
499 based on the received information from all other nodes in the same
500 subregion. The selection criteria in order of priority are: larger
501 number of neighbors, larger remaining energy, and then in case of
502 equality, larger index.
504 \subsubsection{Decision phase}
505 The WSNL will solve an integer program (see section~\ref{cp}) to
506 select which sensors will be activated in the following sensing phase
507 to cover the subregion. WSNL will send Active-Sleep packet to each
508 sensor in the subregion based on the algorithm's results.
511 \subsubsection{Sensing phase}
513 Active sensors in the round will execute their sensing task to preserve maximal
514 coverage in the region of interest. We will assume that the cost of keeping a
515 node awake (or asleep) for sensing task is the same for all wireless sensor
516 nodes in the network. Each sensor will receive an Active-Sleep packet from WSNL
517 informing it to stay awake or to go to sleep for a time equal to the period of
518 sensing until starting a new round. Algorithm 1, which will be executed by each
519 node at the beginning of a round, explains how the Active-Sleep packet is
526 \subsection{DiLCO protocol Algorithm}
527 we first show the pseudo-code of DiLCO protocol, which is executed by each
528 sensor in the subregion and then describe it in more detail. \fi
530 \begin{algorithm}[h!]
531 % \KwIn{all the parameters related to information exchange}
532 % \KwOut{$winer-node$ (: the id of the winner sensor node, which is the leader of current round)}
534 %\emph{Initialize the sensor node and determine it's position and subregion} \;
536 \If{ $RE_j \geq E_{th}$ }{
537 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMMUNICATION}\;
538 \emph{Send $INFO()$ packet to other nodes in the subregion}\;
539 \emph{Wait $INFO()$ packet from other nodes in the subregion}\;
540 %\emph{UPDATE $RE_j$ for every sent or received INFO Packet}\;
541 %\emph{ Collect information and construct the list L for all nodes in the subregion}\;
543 %\If{ the received INFO Packet = No. of nodes in it's subregion -1 }{
544 \emph{LeaderID = Leader election}\;
545 \If{$ s_j.ID = LeaderID $}{
546 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMPUTATION}\;
547 \emph{$\left\{\left(X_{1},\dots,X_{k},\dots,X_{J}\right)\right\}$ =
548 Execute Integer Program Algorithm($J$)}\;
549 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMMUNICATION}\;
550 \emph{Send $ActiveSleep()$ to each node $k$ in subregion} \;
551 \emph{Update $RE_j $}\;
554 \emph{$s_j.status$ = LISTENING}\;
555 \emph{Wait $ActiveSleep()$ packet from the Leader}\;
556 % \emph{After receiving Packet, Retrieve the schedule and the $T$ rounds}\;
557 \emph{Update $RE_j $}\;
561 \Else { Exclude $s_j$ from entering in the current sensing phase}
564 \caption{DiLCO($s_j$)}
570 The DiLCO protocol work in rounds and executed at each sensor node in the network, each sensor node can still sense data while being in
571 LISTENING mode. Thus, by entering the LISTENING mode at the beginning of each round,
572 sensor nodes still executing sensing task while participating in the leader election and decision phases. More specifically, The DiLCO protocol algorithm works as follow:
573 Initially, the sensor node check it's remaining energy in order to participate in the current round. Each sensor node determines it's position and it's subregion based Embedded GPS or Location Discovery Algorithm. After that, All the sensors collect position coordinates, current remaining energy, sensor node id, and the number of its one-hop live neighbors during the information exchange. It stores this information into a list L.
574 The sensor node enter in listening mode waiting to receive ActiveSleep packet from the leader to take the decision. Each sensor node will execute the Algorithm~1 to know who is the leader. After that, if the sensor node is leader, It will execute the integer program algorithm ( see section~\ref{cp}) to optimize the coverage and the lifetime in it's subregion. After the decision, the optimization approach will select the set of sensor nodes to take the mission of coverage during the sensing phase. The leader will send ActiveSleep packet to each sensor node in the subregion to inform him to it's status during the period of sensing, either Active or sleep until the starting of next round. Based on the decision, the leader as other nodes in subregion, either go to be active or go to be sleep during current sensing phase. the other nodes in the same subregion will stay in listening mode waiting the ActiveSleep packet from the leader. After finishing the time period for sensing, all the sensor nodes in the same subregion will start new round by executing the DiLCO protocol and the lifetime in the subregion will continue until all the sensor nodes are died or the network becomes disconnected in the subregion.
578 \section{\uppercase{Coverage problem formulation}}
581 \indent Our model is based on the model proposed by \cite{pedraza2006} where the
582 objective is to find a maximum number of disjoint cover sets. To accomplish
583 this goal, the authors proposed an integer program which forces undercoverage
584 and overcoverage of targets to become minimal at the same time. They use binary
585 variables $x_{jl}$ to indicate if sensor $j$ belongs to cover set $l$. In our
586 model, we consider that the binary variable $X_{j}$ determines the activation of
587 sensor $j$ in the sensing phase. We also consider primary points as targets.
588 The set of primary points is denoted by $P$ and the set of sensors by $J$.
590 \noindent Let $\alpha_{jp}$ denote the indicator function of whether the primary
591 point $p$ is covered, that is:
593 \alpha_{jp} = \left \{
595 1 & \mbox{if the primary point $p$ is covered} \\
596 & \mbox{by sensor node $j$}, \\
597 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
601 The number of active sensors that cover the primary point $p$ can then be
602 computed by $\sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} * X_{j}$ where:
606 1& \mbox{if sensor $j$ is active,} \\
607 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
611 We define the Overcoverage variable $\Theta_{p}$ as:
613 \Theta_{p} = \left \{
615 0 & \mbox{if the primary point}\\
616 & \mbox{$p$ is not covered,}\\
617 \left( \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} * X_{j} \right)- 1 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
621 \noindent More precisely, $\Theta_{p}$ represents the number of active sensor
622 nodes minus one that cover the primary point~$p$. The Undercoverage variable
623 $U_{p}$ of the primary point $p$ is defined by:
627 1 &\mbox{if the primary point $p$ is not covered,} \\
628 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
633 \noindent Our coverage optimization problem can then be formulated as follows:
634 \begin{equation} \label{eq:ip2r}
637 \min \sum_{p \in P} (w_{\theta} \Theta_{p} + w_{U} U_{p})&\\
638 \textrm{subject to :}&\\
639 \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j} - \Theta_{p}+ U_{p} =1, &\forall p \in P\\
641 %\sum_{t \in T} X_{j,t} \leq \frac{RE_j}{e_t} &\forall j \in J \\
643 \Theta_{p}\in \mathbb{N}, &\forall p \in P\\
644 U_{p} \in \{0,1\}, &\forall p \in P \\
645 X_{j} \in \{0,1\}, &\forall j \in J
651 \item $X_{j}$ : indicates whether or not the sensor $j$ is actively sensing (1
652 if yes and 0 if not);
653 \item $\Theta_{p}$ : {\it overcoverage}, the number of sensors minus one that
654 are covering the primary point $p$;
655 \item $U_{p}$ : {\it undercoverage}, indicates whether or not the primary point
656 $p$ is being covered (1 if not covered and 0 if covered).
659 The first group of constraints indicates that some primary point $p$ should be
660 covered by at least one sensor and, if it is not always the case, overcoverage
661 and undercoverage variables help balancing the restriction equations by taking
662 positive values. Two objectives can be noticed in our model. First, we limit the
663 overcoverage of primary points to activate as few sensors as possible. Second,
664 to avoid a lack of area monitoring in a subregion we minimize the
665 undercoverage. Both weights $w_\theta$ and $w_U$ must be carefully chosen in
666 order to guarantee that the maximum number of points are covered during each
669 \section{\uppercase{Protocol evaluation}}
670 \label{sec:Simulation Results and Analysis}
671 \noindent \subsection{Simulation framework}
673 To assess the performance of our DiLCO protocol, we have used the discrete
674 event simulator OMNeT++ \cite{varga} to run different series of simulations.
675 Table~\ref{table3} gives the chosen parameters setting.
678 \caption{Relevant parameters for network initializing.}
681 % used for centering table
683 % centered columns (4 columns)
685 %inserts double horizontal lines
686 Parameter & Value \\ [0.5ex]
688 %Case & Strategy (with Two Leaders) & Strategy (with One Leader) & Simple Heuristic \\ [0.5ex]
692 % inserts single horizontal line
693 Sensing Field & $(50 \times 25)~m^2 $ \\
694 % inserting body of the table
696 Nodes Number & 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250~nodes \\
698 Initial Energy & 500-700~joules \\
700 Sensing Period & 60 Minutes \\
701 $E_{th}$ & 36 Joules\\
705 % [1ex] adds vertical space
711 % is used to refer this table in the text
714 Simulations with five different node densities going from 50 to 250~nodes were
715 performed considering each time 25~randomly generated networks, to obtain
716 experimental results which are relevant. The nodes are deployed on a field of
717 interest of $(50 \times 25)~m^2 $ in such a way that they cover the field with a
720 We chose as energy consumption model the one proposed proposed by~\cite{ChinhVu}
721 and based on ~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} with slight modifications. The energy
722 consumed by the communications is added and the part relative to a variable
723 sensing range is removed. We also assume that the nodes have the characteristics
724 of the Medusa II sensor node platform \cite{raghunathan2002energy}. A sensor
725 node typically consists of four units: a MicroController Unit, an Atmels AVR
726 ATmega103L in case of Medusa II, to perform the computations; a communication
727 (radio) unit able to send and receive messages; a sensing unit to collect data;
728 a power supply which provides the energy consumed by node. Except the battery,
729 all the other unit can be switched off to save energy according to the node
730 status. Table~\ref{table4} summarizes the energy consumed (in milliWatt per
731 second) by a node for each of its possible status.
734 \caption{Energy consumption model}
737 % used for centering table
739 \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|}
740 % centered columns (4 columns)
742 %inserts double horizontal lines
743 Sensor status & MCU & Radio & Sensing & Power (mW) \\ [0.5ex]
745 % inserts single horizontal line
746 Listening & ON & ON & ON & 20.05 \\
747 % inserting body of the table
749 Active & ON & OFF & ON & 9.72 \\
751 Sleep & OFF & OFF & OFF & 0.02 \\
753 Computation & ON & ON & ON & 26.83 \\
755 %\multicolumn{4}{|c|}{Energy needed to send/receive a 1-bit} & 0.2575\\
761 % is used to refer this table in the text
764 Less influent energy consumption sources like when turning on the radio,
765 starting the sensor node, changing the status of a node, etc., will be neglected
766 for the sake of simplicity. Each node saves energy by switching off its radio
767 once it has received its decision status from the corresponding leader (it can
768 be itself). As explained previously in subsection~\ref{main_idea}, two kinds of
769 packets for communication are considered in our protocol: INFO packet and
770 ActiveSleep packet. To compute the energy needed by a node to transmit or
771 receive such packets, we use the equation giving the energy spent to send a
772 1-bit-content message defined in~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} (we assume
773 symmetric communication costs), and we set their respective size to 112 and
774 24~bits. The energy required to send or receive a 1-bit-content message is thus
777 Each node has an initial energy level, in Joules, which is randomly drawn in the
778 interval $[500-700]$. If its energy provision reaches a value below the
779 threshold $E_{th}=36$~Joules, the minimum energy needed for a node to stay
780 active during one period, it will no longer take part in the coverage task. This
781 value corresponds to the energy needed by the sensing phase, obtained by
782 multiplying the energy consumed in active state (9.72 mW) by the time in seconds
783 for one period (3,600 seconds), and adding the energy for the pre-sensing phases.
784 According to the interval of initial energy, a sensor may be active during at
787 In the simulations, we introduce the following performance metrics to evaluate
788 the efficiency of our approach:
790 %\begin{enumerate}[i)]
792 \item {{\bf Network Lifetime}:} we define the network lifetime as the time until
793 the coverage ratio drops below a predefined threshold. We denote by
794 $Lifetime_{95}$ (respectively $Lifetime_{50}$) the amount of time during which
795 the network can satisfy an area coverage greater than $95\%$ (respectively
796 $50\%$). We assume that the sensor network can fulfill its task until all its
797 nodes have been drained of their energy or it becomes disconnected. Network
798 connectivity is crucial because an active sensor node without connectivity
799 towards a base station cannot transmit any information regarding an observed
800 event in the area that it monitors.
803 \item {{\bf Coverage Ratio (CR)}:} it measures how well the WSN is able to
804 observe the area of interest. In our case, we discretized the sensor field
805 as a regular grid, which yields the following equation to compute the
809 \mbox{CR}(\%) = \frac{\mbox{$n$}}{\mbox{$N$}} \times 100.
811 where $n$ is the number of covered grid points by active sensors of every
812 subregions during the current sensing phase and $N$ is the total number of grid
813 points in the sensing field. In our simulations, we have a layout of $N = 51
814 \times 26 = 1326$ grid points.
815 %The accuracy of this method depends on the distance between grids. In our
816 %simulations, the sensing field has been divided into 50 by 25 grid points, which means
817 %there are $51 \times 26~ = ~ 1326$ points in total.
818 % Therefore, for our simulations, the error in the coverage calculation is less than ~ 1 $\% $.
822 \item{{\bf Number of Active Sensors Ratio(ASR)}:} It is important to have as few active nodes as possible in each round,
823 in order to minimize the communication overhead and maximize the
824 network lifetime. The Active Sensors Ratio is defined as follows:
827 \mbox{ASR}(\%) = \frac{\sum\limits_{r=1}^R \mbox{$A_r^t$}}{\mbox{$S$}} \times 100 .
829 Where: $A_r^t$ is the number of active sensors in the subregion $r$ during round $t$ in the current sensing phase, $S$ is the total number of sensors in the network, and $R$ is the total number of the subregions in the network.
833 \item {{\bf Energy Consumption}:} energy consumption (EC) can be seen as the
834 total amount of energy consumed by the sensors during $Lifetime_{95}$ or
835 $Lifetime_{50}$, divided by the number of periods. Formally, the computation
836 of EC can be expressed as follows:
839 \mbox{EC} = \frac{\sum\limits_{m=1}^{M} \left( E^{\mbox{com}}_m+E^{\mbox{list}}_m+E^{\mbox{comp}}_m
840 + E^{a}_m+E^{s}_m \right)}{M},
843 where $M$ corresponds to the number of periods. The total amount of energy consumed by
844 the sensors (EC) comes through taking into consideration four main energy
845 factors. The first one, denoted $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{com}}_m$, represents the
846 energy consumption spent by all the nodes for wireless communications during
847 period $m$. $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{list}}_m$, the next factor, corresponds to
848 the energy consumed by the sensors in LISTENING status before receiving the
849 decision to go active or sleep in period $m$. $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{comp}}_m$
850 refers to the energy needed by all the leader nodes to solve the integer program
851 during a period. Finally, $E^a_{m}$ and $E^s_{m}$ indicate the energy consumed
852 by the whole network in the sensing phase (active and sleeping nodes).
856 \item {{\bf Execution Time}:} a sensor node has limited energy resources and
857 computing power, therefore it is important that the proposed algorithm has the
858 shortest possible execution time. The energy of a sensor node must be mainly
859 used for the sensing phase, not for the pre-sensing ones.
861 \item {{\bf Stopped simulation runs}:} A simulation ends when the sensor network
862 becomes disconnected (some nodes are dead and are not able to send information
863 to the base station). We report the number of simulations that are stopped due
864 to network disconnections and for which round it occurs.
872 %\subsection{Performance Analysis for different subregions}
873 \subsection{Performance analysis}
876 In this subsection, we first focus on the performance of our DiLCO protocol for
877 different numbers of subregions. We consider partitions of the WSN area into
878 $2$, $4$, $8$, $16$, and $32$ subregions. Thus the DiLCO protocol is declined in
879 five versions: DiLCO-2, DiLCO-4, DiLCO-8, DiLCO-16, and DiLCO-32. Simulations
880 without partitioning the area of interest, cases which correspond to a
881 centralized approach, are not presented because they require high execution
882 times to solve the integer program and therefore consume too much energy.
884 We compare our protocol to two other approaches. The first one, called DESK and
885 proposed by ~\cite{ChinhVu} is a fully distributed coverage algorithm. The
886 second one, called GAF ~\cite{xu2001geography}, consists in dividing the region
887 into fixed squares. During the decision phase, in each square, one sensor is
888 chosen to remain active during the sensing phase.
890 \subsubsection{Coverage ratio}
892 Figure~\ref{fig3} shows the average coverage ratio for 150 deployed nodes. It
893 can be seen that both DESK and GAF provide a coverage ratio which is slightly better
894 compared to DiLCO in the first thirty periods. This can be easily explained by
895 the number of active nodes: the optimization process of our protocol activates
896 less nodes than DESK or GAF, resulting in a slight decrease of the coverage
897 ratio. In case of DiLCO-2 (respectively DiLCO-4), the coverage ratio exhibits a
898 fast decrease with the number of periods and reaches zero value in period~18
899 (respectively 46), whereas the other versions of DiLCO, DESK, and GAF ensure a
900 coverage ratio above 50\% for subsequent periods. We believe that the results
901 obtained with these two methods can be explained by a high consumption of energy
902 and we will check this assumption in the next subsection.
904 Concerning DiLCO-8, DiLCO-16, and DiLCO-32, these methods seem to be more
905 efficient than DESK and GAF, since they can provide the same level of coverage
906 (except in the first periods where DESK and GAF slightly outperform them) for a
907 greater number of periods. In fact, when our protocol is applied with a large
908 number of subregions (from 8 to 32~regions), it activates a restricted number of
909 nodes, and thus enables the extension of the network lifetime.
914 \includegraphics[scale=0.45] {R/CR.pdf}
915 \caption{Coverage ratio}
919 %As shown in the figure ~\ref{fig3}, as the number of subregions increases, the coverage preservation for area of interest increases for a larger number of periods. Coverage ratio decreases when the number of periods increases due to dead nodes. Although some nodes are dead,
920 %thanks to DiLCO-8, DiLCO-16 and DiLCO-32 protocols, other nodes are preserved to ensure the coverage. Moreover, when we have a dense sensor network, it leads to maintain the coverage for a larger number of rounds. DiLCO-8, DiLCO-16 and DiLCO-32 protocols are
921 %slightly more efficient than other protocols, because they subdivides
922 %the area of interest into 8, 16 and 32~subregions if one of the subregions becomes disconnected, the coverage may be still ensured in the remaining subregions.%
924 \subsubsection{Energy consumption}
926 Based on the results shown in Figure~\ref{fig3}, we focus on the DiLCO-16 and
927 DiLCO-32 versions of our protocol, and we compare their energy consumption with
928 the DESK and GAF approaches. For each sensor node we measure the energy consumed
929 according to its successive status, for different network densities. We denote
930 by $\mbox{\it Protocol}/50$ (respectively $\mbox{\it Protocol}/95$) the amount
931 of energy consumed while the area coverage is greater than $50\%$ (repectively
932 $95\%$), where {\it Protocol} is one of the four protocols we compare.
933 Figure~\ref{fig95} presents the energy consumptions observed for network sizes
934 going from 50 to 250~nodes. Let us notice that the same network sizes will be
935 used for the different performance metrics.
939 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{R/EC.pdf}
940 \caption{Energy consumption}
944 The results depict the good performance of the different versions of our
945 protocol. Indeed, the protocols DiLCO-16/50, DiLCO-32/50, DiLCO-16/95, and
946 DiLCO-32/95 consume less energy than their DESK and GAF counterparts for a
947 similar level of area coverage. This observation reflects the larger number of
948 nodes set active by DESK and GAF.
951 %In fact, a distributed method on the subregions greatly reduces the number of communications and the time of listening so thanks to the partitioning of the initial network into several independent subnetworks.
952 %As shown in Figures~\ref{fig95} and ~\ref{fig50} , DiLCO-2 consumes more energy than the other versions of DiLCO, especially for large sizes of network. This is easy to understand since the bigger the number of sensors involved in the integer program, the larger the time computation to solve the optimization problem as well as the higher energy consumed during the communication.
954 \subsubsection{Execution time}
956 Another interesting point to investigate is the evolution of the execution time
957 with the size of the WSN and the number of subregions. Therefore, we report for
958 every version of our protocol the average execution times in seconds needed to
959 solve the optimization problem for different WSN sizes. The execution times are
960 obtained on a laptop DELL which has an Intel Core~i3~2370~M~(2.4~GHz) dual core
961 processor and a MIPS rating equal to 35330. The corresponding execution times on
962 a MEDUSA II sensor node are then extrapolated according to the MIPS rate of the
963 Atmels AVR ATmega103L microcontroller (6~MHz), which is equal to 6, by
964 multiplying the laptop times by $\left(\frac{35330}{2} \times
965 \frac{1}{6}\right)$. The expected times on a sensor node are reported on
970 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{R/T.pdf}
971 \caption{Execution time in seconds}
975 Figure~\ref{fig8} shows that DiLCO-32 has very low execution times in comparison
976 with other DiLCO versions, because the activity scheduling is tackled by a
977 larger number of leaders and each leader solves an integer problem with a
978 limited number of variables and constraints. Conversely, DiLCO-2 requires to
979 solve an optimization problem with half of the network nodes and thus presents a
980 high execution time. Nevertheless if we refer to Figure~\ref{fig3}, we observe
981 that DiLCO-32 is slightly less efficient than DilCO-16 to maintain as long as
982 possible high coverage. In fact an excessive subdivision of the area of interest
983 prevents it to ensure a good coverage especially on the borders of the
984 subregions. Thus, the optimal number of subregions can be seen as a trade-off
985 between execution time and coverage performance.
987 %The DiLCO-32 has more suitable times in the same time it turn on redundent nodes more. We think that in distributed fashion the solving of the optimization problem in a subregion can be tackled by sensor nodes. Overall, to be able to deal with very large networks, a distributed method is clearly required.
989 \subsubsection{Network lifetime}
991 In the next figure, the network lifetime is illustrated. Obviously, the lifetime
992 increases with the network size, whatever the considered protocol, since the
993 correlated node density also increases. A high network density means a high
994 node redundancy which allows to turn-off many nodes and thus to prolong the
999 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{R/LT.pdf}
1000 \caption{Network lifetime}
1004 As highlighted by Figure~\ref{figLT95}, when the coverage level is relaxed
1005 ($50\%$) the network lifetime also improves. This observation reflects the fact
1006 that the higher the coverage performance, the more nodes must be active to
1007 ensure the wider monitoring. For a similar level of coverage, DiLCO outperforms
1008 DESK and GAF for the lifetime of the network. More specifically, if we focus on
1009 the larger level of coverage ($95\%$) in the case of our protocol, the subdivision
1010 in $16$~subregions seems to be the most appropriate.
1012 % with our DiLCO-16/50, DiLCO-32/50, DiLCO-16/95 and DiLCO-32/95 protocols
1013 % that leads to the larger lifetime improvement in comparison with other approaches. By choosing the best
1014 % suited nodes, for each round, to cover the area of interest and by
1015 % letting the other ones sleep in order to be used later in next rounds. Comparison shows that our DiLCO-16/50, DiLCO-32/50, DiLCO-16/95 and DiLCO-32/95 protocols, which are used distributed optimization over the subregions, are the best one because it is robust to network disconnection during the network lifetime as well as it consume less energy in comparison with other approaches. It also means that distributing the protocol in each node and subdividing the sensing field into many subregions, which are managed
1016 % independently and simultaneously, is the most relevant way to maximize the lifetime of a network.
1018 \section{\uppercase{Conclusion and future work}}
1019 \label{sec:Conclusion and Future Works}
1021 A crucial problem in WSN is to schedule the sensing activities of the different
1022 nodes in order to ensure both coverage of the area of interest and longer
1023 network lifetime. The inherent limitations of sensor nodes, in energy provision,
1024 communication and computing capacities, require protocols that optimize the use
1025 of the available resources to fulfill the sensing task. To address this
1026 problem, this paper proposes a two-step approach. Firstly, the field of sensing
1027 is divided into smaller subregions using the concept of divide-and-conquer
1028 method. Secondly, a distributed protocol called Distributed Lifetime Coverage
1029 Optimization is applied in each subregion to optimize the coverage and lifetime
1030 performances. In a subregion, our protocol consists in electing a leader node
1031 which will then perform a sensor activity scheduling. The challenges include how
1032 to select the most efficient leader in each subregion and the best
1033 representative set of active nodes to ensure a high level of coverage. To assess
1034 the performance of our approach, we compared it with two other approaches using
1035 many performance metrics like coverage ratio or network lifetime. We have also
1036 studied the impact of the number of subregions chosen to subdivide the area of
1037 interest, considering different network sizes. The experiments show that
1038 increasing the number of subregions improves the lifetime. The more subregions there are, the more robust the network is against random disconnection
1039 resulting from dead nodes. However, for a given sensing field and network size
1040 there is an optimal number of subregions. Therefore, in case of our simulation
1041 context a subdivision in $16$~subregions seems to be the most relevant. The
1042 optimal number of subregions will be investigated in the future.
1045 \noindent In this paper, we have addressed the problem of the coverage and the lifetime
1046 optimization in wireless sensor networks. This is a key issue as
1047 sensor nodes have limited resources in terms of memory, energy and
1048 computational power. To cope with this problem, the field of sensing
1049 is divided into smaller subregions using the concept of divide-and-conquer method, and then a DiLCO protocol for optimizing the coverage and lifetime performances in each subregion.
1050 The proposed protocol combines two efficient techniques: network
1051 leader election and sensor activity scheduling, where the challenges
1052 include how to select the most efficient leader in each subregion and
1053 the best representative active nodes that will optimize the network lifetime
1054 while taking the responsibility of covering the corresponding
1055 subregion. The network lifetime in each subregion is divided into
1056 rounds, each round consists of four phases: (i) Information Exchange,
1057 (ii) Leader Election, (iii) an optimization-based Decision in order to
1058 select the nodes remaining active for the last phase, and (iv)
1059 Sensing. The simulations show the relevance of the proposed DiLCO
1060 protocol in terms of lifetime, coverage ratio, active sensors ratio, energy consumption, execution time, and the number of stopped simulation runs due to network disconnection. Indeed, when
1061 dealing with large and dense wireless sensor networks, a distributed
1062 approach like the one we are proposed allows to reduce the difficulty of a
1063 single global optimization problem by partitioning it in many smaller
1064 problems, one per subregion, that can be solved more easily.
1066 In future work, we plan to study and propose a coverage optimization protocol, which
1067 computes all active sensor schedules in one time, using
1068 optimization methods. \iffalse The round will still consist of 4 phases, but the
1069 decision phase will compute the schedules for several sensing phases
1070 which, aggregated together, define a kind of meta-sensing phase.
1071 The computation of all cover sets in one time is far more
1072 difficult, but will reduce the communication overhead. \fi
1075 \section*{\uppercase{Acknowledgements}}
1077 \noindent As a Ph.D. student, Ali Kadhum IDREES would like to gratefully
1078 acknowledge the University of Babylon - IRAQ for the financial support and
1079 Campus France for the received support. This paper is also partially funded by
1080 the Labex ACTION program (contract ANR-11-LABX-01-01).
1083 \bibliographystyle{apalike}
1085 \bibliography{Example}}