1 \documentclass[a4paper,twoside]{article}
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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.
59 Simulations are conducted using the discret event simulator
60 OMNET++. We refer to the characterictics of a Medusa II sensor for
61 the energy consumption and the computation time. In comparison with
62 two other existing methods, our approach is able to increase the WSN
63 lifetime and provides improved coverage performance. }
66 \onecolumn \maketitle \normalsize \vfill
68 \section{\uppercase{Introduction}}
69 \label{sec:introduction}
72 Energy efficiency is a crucial issue in wireless sensor networks since sensory
73 consumption, in order to maximize the network lifetime, represents the major
74 difficulty when designing WSNs. As a consequence, one of the scientific research
75 challenges in WSNs, which has been addressed by a large amount of literature
76 during the last few years, is the design of energy efficient approaches for
77 coverage and connectivity~\cite{conti2014mobile}. Coverage reflects how well a
78 sensor field is monitored. On the one hand we want to monitor the area of
79 interest in the most efficient way~\cite{Nayak04}. On the other hand we want to
80 use as little energy as possible. Sensor nodes are battery-powered with no
81 means of recharging or replacing, usually due to environmental (hostile or
82 unpractical environments) or cost reasons. Therefore, it is desired that the
83 WSNs are deployed with high densities so as to exploit the overlapping sensing
84 regions of some sensor nodes to save energy by turning off some of them during
85 the sensing phase to prolong the network lifetime.
87 In this paper we design a protocol that focuses on the area coverage problem
88 with the objective of maximizing the network lifetime. Our proposition, the
89 Distributed Lifetime Coverage Optimization (DILCO) protocol, maintains the
90 coverage and improves the lifetime in WSNs. The area of interest is first
91 divided into subregions using a divide-and-conquer algorithm and an activity
92 scheduling for sensor nodes is then planned by the elected leader in each
93 subregion. In fact, the nodes in a subregion can be seen as a cluster where each
94 node sends sensing data to the cluster head or the sink node. Furthermore, the
95 activities in a subregion/cluster can continue even if another cluster stops due
96 to too many node failures. Our DiLCO protocol considers periods, where a period
97 starts with a discovery phase to exchange information between sensors of the
98 same subregion, in order to choose in a suitable manner a sensor node (the
99 leader) to carry out the coverage strategy. In each subregion the activation of
100 the sensors for the sensing phase of the current period is obtained by solving
101 an integer program. The resulting activation vector is broadcast by a leader
102 to every node of its subregion.
105 Our previous paper ~\cite{idrees2014coverage} relies almost exclusively on the
106 framework of the DiLCO approach and the coverage problem formulation. In this
107 paper we made more realistic simulations by taking into account the
108 characteristics of a Medusa II sensor ~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} to measure
109 the energy consumption and the computation time. We have implemented two other
110 existing approaches (a distributed one, DESK ~\cite{ChinhVu}, and a centralized
111 one called GAF ~\cite{xu2001geography}) in order to compare their performances
112 with our approach. We also focus on performance analysis based on the number of
116 The remainder of the paper continues with Section~\ref{sec:Literature Review}
117 where a review of some related works is presented. The next section describes
118 the DiLCO protocol, followed in Section~\ref{cp} by the coverage model
119 formulation which is used to schedule the activation of
120 sensors. Section~\ref{sec:Simulation Results and Analysis} shows the simulation
121 results. The paper ends with a conclusion and some suggestions for further work
122 in Section~\ref{sec:Conclusion and Future Works}.
124 \section{\uppercase{Literature Review}}
125 \label{sec:Literature Review}
127 \noindent In this section, we summarize some related works regarding the
128 coverage problem and distinguish our DiLCO protocol from the works presented in
131 The most discussed coverage problems in literature can be classified into three
132 types \cite{li2013survey}: area coverage \cite{Misra} where every point inside
133 an area is to be monitored, target coverage \cite{yang2014novel} where the main
134 objective is to cover only a finite number of discrete points called targets,
135 and barrier coverage \cite{Kumar:2005}\cite{kim2013maximum} to prevent intruders
136 from entering into the region of interest. In \cite{Deng2012} authors transform
137 the area coverage problem to the target coverage problem taking into account the
138 intersection points among disks of sensors nodes or between disk of sensor nodes
139 and boundaries. {\it In DiLCO protocol, the area coverage, i.e. the coverage of
140 every point in the sensing region, is transformed to the coverage of a
141 fraction of points called primary points. }
143 The major approach to extend network lifetime while preserving coverage is to
144 divide/organize the sensors into a suitable number of set covers (disjoint or
145 non-disjoint), where each set completely covers a region of interest, and to
146 activate these set covers successively. The network activity can be planned in
147 advance and scheduled for the entire network lifetime or organized in periods,
148 and the set of active sensor nodes is decided at the beginning of each period
149 \cite{ling2009energy}. Active node selection is determined based on the problem
150 requirements (e.g. area monitoring, connectivity, power efficiency). For
151 instance, Jaggi et al. \cite{jaggi2006} address the problem of maximizing
152 network lifetime by dividing sensors into the maximum number of disjoint subsets
153 such that each subset can ensure both coverage and connectivity. A greedy
154 algorithm is applied once to solve this problem and the computed sets are
155 activated in succession to achieve the desired network lifetime. Vu
156 \cite{chin2007}, Padmatvathy et al. \cite{pc10}, propose algorithms working in a
157 periodic fashion where a cover set is computed at the beginning of each period.
158 {\it Motivated by these works, DiLCO protocol works in periods, where each
159 period contains a preliminary phase for information exchange and decisions,
160 followed by a sensing phase where one cover set is in charge of the sensing
163 Various approaches, including centralized, or distributed algorithms, have been
164 proposed to extend the network lifetime. In distributed
165 algorithms~\cite{yangnovel,ChinhVu,qu2013distributed}, information is
166 disseminated throughout the network and sensors decide cooperatively by
167 communicating with their neighbors which of them will remain in sleep mode for a
168 certain period of time. The centralized
169 algorithms~\cite{cardei2005improving,zorbas2010solving,pujari2011high} always
170 provide nearly or close to optimal solution since the algorithm has global view
171 of the whole network. But such a method has the disadvantage of requiring high
172 communication costs, since the node (located at the base station) making the
173 decision needs information from all the sensor nodes in the area and the amount
174 of information can be huge. {\it In order to be suitable for large-scale
175 network, in the DiLCO protocol, the area coverage is divided into several
176 smaller subregions, and in each one, a node called the leader is in charge for
177 selecting the active sensors for the current period.}
179 A large variety of coverage scheduling algorithms has been developed. Many of
180 the existing algorithms, dealing with the maximization of the number of cover
181 sets, are heuristics. These heuristics involve the construction of a cover set
182 by including in priority the sensor nodes which cover critical targets, that is
183 to say targets that are covered by the smallest number of sensors
184 \cite{berman04,zorbas2010solving}. Other approaches are based on mathematical
185 programming formulations~\cite{cardei2005energy,5714480,pujari2011high,Yang2014}
186 and dedicated techniques (solving with a branch-and-bound algorithms available
187 in optimization solver). The problem is formulated as an optimization problem
188 (maximization of the lifetime or number of cover sets) under target coverage and
189 energy constraints. Column generation techniques, well-known and widely
190 practiced techniques for solving linear programs with too many variables, have
192 used~\cite{castano2013column,rossi2012exact,deschinkel2012column}. {\it In DiLCO
193 protocol, each leader, in each subregion, solves an integer program with a
194 double objective consisting in minimizing the overcoverage and limiting the
195 undercoverage. This program is inspired from the work of \cite{pedraza2006}
196 where the objective is to maximize the number of cover sets.}
198 \section{\uppercase{Description of the DiLCO protocol}}
199 \label{sec:The DiLCO Protocol Description}
201 \noindent In this section, we introduce the DiLCO protocol which is distributed
202 on each subregion in the area of interest. It is based on two efficient
203 techniques: network leader election and sensor activity scheduling for coverage
204 preservation and energy conservation, applied periodically to efficiently
205 maximize the lifetime in the network.
207 \subsection{Assumptions and models}
209 \noindent We consider a sensor network composed of static nodes distributed
210 independently and uniformly at random. A high density deployment ensures a high
211 coverage ratio of the interested area at the start. The nodes are supposed to
212 have homogeneous characteristics from a communication and a processing point of
213 view, whereas they have heterogeneous energy provisions. Each node has access
214 to its location thanks, either to a hardware component (like a GPS unit), or a
215 location discovery algorithm.
217 \indent We consider a boolean disk coverage model which is the most widely used
218 sensor coverage model in the literature. Thus, since a sensor has a constant
219 sensing range $R_s$, every space points within a disk centered at a sensor with
220 the radius of the sensing range is said to be covered by this sensor. We also
221 assume that the communication range $R_c \geq 2R_s$. In fact, Zhang and
222 Hou~\cite{Zhang05} proved that if the transmission range fulfills the previous
223 hypothesis, a complete coverage of a convex area implies connectivity among the
224 working nodes in the active mode.
226 \indent For each sensor we also define a set of points called primary
227 points~\cite{idrees2014coverage} to approximate the area coverage it provides,
228 rather than working with a continuous coverage. Thus, a sensing disk
229 corresponding to a sensor node is covered by its neighboring nodes if all its
230 primary points are covered. Obviously, the approximation of coverage is more or
231 less accurate according to the number of primary points.
234 \subsection{Main idea}
236 \noindent We start by applying a divide-and-conquer algorithm to partition the
237 area of interest into smaller areas called subregions and then our protocol is
238 executed simultaneously in each subregion.
242 \includegraphics[width=75mm]{FirstModel.pdf} % 70mm
243 \caption{DiLCO protocol}
247 As shown in Figure~\ref{fig2}, the proposed DiLCO protocol is a periodic
248 protocol where each period is decomposed into 4~phases: Information Exchange,
249 Leader Election, Decision, and Sensing. For each period there will be exactly
250 one cover set in charge of the sensing task. A periodic scheduling is
251 interesting because it enhances the robustness of the network against node
252 failures. First, a node that has not enough energy to complete a period, or
253 which fails before the decision is taken, will be excluded from the scheduling
254 process. Second, if a node fails later, whereas it was supposed to sense the
255 region of interest, it will only affect the quality of the coverage until the
256 definition of a new cover set in the next period. Constraints, like energy
257 consumption, can be easily taken into consideration since the sensors can update
258 and exchange their information during the first phase. Let us notice that the
259 phases before the sensing one (Information Exchange, Leader Election, and
260 Decision) are energy consuming for all the nodes, even nodes that will not be
261 retained by the leader to keep watch over the corresponding area.
263 During the execution of the DiLCO protocol, two kinds of packet will be used:
264 %\begin{enumerate}[(a)]
266 \item INFO packet: sent by each sensor node to all the nodes inside a same
267 subregion for information exchange.
268 \item ActiveSleep packet: sent by the leader to all the nodes in its subregion
269 to inform them to stay Active or to go Sleep during the sensing phase.
272 and each sensor node will have five possible status in the network:
273 %\begin{enumerate}[(a)]
275 \item LISTENING: sensor is waiting for a decision (to be active or not);
276 \item COMPUTATION: sensor applies the optimization process as leader;
277 \item ACTIVE: sensor is active;
278 \item SLEEP: sensor is turned off;
279 \item COMMUNICATION: sensor is transmitting or receiving packet.
283 An outline of the protocol implementation is given by Algorithm~\ref{alg:DiLCO}
284 which describes the execution of a period by a node (denoted by $s_j$ for a
285 sensor node indexed by $j$). At the beginning a node checks whether it has
286 enough energy to stay active during the next sensing phase. If yes, it exchanges
287 information with all the other nodes belonging to the same subregion: it
288 collects from each node its position coordinates, remaining energy ($RE_j$), ID,
289 and the number of one-hop neighbors still alive. Once the first phase is
290 completed, the nodes of a subregion choose a leader to take the decision based
291 on the following criteria with decreasing importance: larger number of
292 neighbors, larger remaining energy, and then in case of equality, larger index.
293 After that, if the sensor node is leader, it will execute the integer program
294 algorithm (see Section~\ref{cp}) which provides a set of sensors planned to be
295 active in the next sensing phase. As leader, it will send an Active-Sleep packet
296 to each sensor in the same subregion to indicate it if it has to be active or
297 not. Alternately, if the sensor is not the leader, it will wait for the
298 Active-Sleep packet to know its state for the coming sensing phase.
301 \begin{algorithm}[h!]
304 %\emph{Initialize the sensor node and determine it's position and subregion} \;
306 \If{ $RE_j \geq E_{th}$ }{
307 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMMUNICATION}\;
308 \emph{Send $INFO()$ packet to other nodes in the subregion}\;
309 \emph{Wait $INFO()$ packet from other nodes in the subregion}\;
310 %\emph{UPDATE $RE_j$ for every sent or received INFO Packet}\;
311 %\emph{ Collect information and construct the list L for all nodes in the subregion}\;
313 %\If{ the received INFO Packet = No. of nodes in it's subregion -1 }{
314 \emph{LeaderID = Leader election}\;
315 \If{$ s_j.ID = LeaderID $}{
316 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMPUTATION}\;
317 \emph{$\left\{\left(X_{1},\dots,X_{k},\dots,X_{J}\right)\right\}$ =
318 Execute Integer Program Algorithm($J$)}\;
319 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMMUNICATION}\;
320 \emph{Send $ActiveSleep()$ to each node $k$ in subregion} \;
321 \emph{Update $RE_j $}\;
324 \emph{$s_j.status$ = LISTENING}\;
325 \emph{Wait $ActiveSleep()$ packet from the Leader}\;
327 \emph{Update $RE_j $}\;
331 \Else { Exclude $s_j$ from entering in the current sensing phase}
334 \caption{DiLCO($s_j$)}
339 \section{\uppercase{Coverage problem formulation}}
343 We formulate the coverage optimization problem with an integer program.
344 The objective function consists in minimizing the undercoverage and the overcoverage of the area as suggested in \cite{pedraza2006}.
345 The area coverage problem is expressed as the coverage of a fraction of points called primary points.
346 Details on the choice and the number of primary points can be found in \cite{idrees2014coverage}. The set of primary points is denoted by $P$
347 and the set of sensors by $J$. As we consider a boolean disk coverage model, we use the boolean indicator $\alpha_{jp}$ which is equal to 1 if the primary point $p$ is in the sensing range of the sensor $j$. The binary variable $X_j$ represents the activation or not of the sensor $j$. So we can express the number of active sensors that cover the primary point $p$ by $\sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} * X_{j}$. We deduce the overcoverage denoted by $\Theta_p$ of the primary point $p$ :
349 \Theta_{p} = \left \{
351 0 & \mbox{if the primary point}\\
352 & \mbox{$p$ is not covered,}\\
353 \left( \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} * X_{j} \right)- 1 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
357 More precisely, $\Theta_{p}$ represents the number of active sensor
358 nodes minus one that cover the primary point~$p$.
359 In the same way, we define the undercoverage variable
360 $U_{p}$ of the primary point $p$ as:
364 1 &\mbox{if the primary point $p$ is not covered,} \\
365 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
369 There is, of course, a relationship between the three variables $X_j$, $\Theta_p$, and $U_p$ which can be formulated as follows :
371 \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j} - \Theta_{p}+ U_{p} =1, \forall p \in P
373 If the point $p$ is not covered, $U_p=1$, $\sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j}=0$ and $\Theta_{p}=0$ by definition, so the equality is satisfied.
374 On the contrary, if the point $p$ is covered, $U_p=0$, and $\Theta_{p}=\left( \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j} \right)- 1$.
375 \noindent Our coverage optimization problem can then be formulated as follows:
376 \begin{equation} \label{eq:ip2r}
379 \min \sum_{p \in P} (w_{\theta} \Theta_{p} + w_{U} U_{p})&\\
380 \textrm{subject to :}&\\
381 \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j} - \Theta_{p}+ U_{p} =1, &\forall p \in P\\
383 %\sum_{t \in T} X_{j,t} \leq \frac{RE_j}{e_t} &\forall j \in J \\
385 \Theta_{p}\in \mathbb{N}, &\forall p \in P\\
386 U_{p} \in \{0,1\}, &\forall p \in P \\
387 X_{j} \in \{0,1\}, &\forall j \in J
391 The objective function is a weighted sum of overcoverage and undercoverage. The goal is to limit the overcoverage in order to activate a minimal number of sensors while simultaneously preventing undercoverage. Both weights $w_\theta$ and $w_U$ must be carefully chosen in
392 order to guarantee that the maximum number of points are covered during each
404 \indent Our model is based on the model proposed by \cite{pedraza2006} where the
405 objective is to find a maximum number of disjoint cover sets. To accomplish
406 this goal, the authors proposed an integer program which forces undercoverage
407 and overcoverage of targets to become minimal at the same time. They use binary
408 variables $x_{jl}$ to indicate if sensor $j$ belongs to cover set $l$. In our
409 model, we consider that the binary variable $X_{j}$ determines the activation of
410 sensor $j$ in the sensing phase. We also consider primary points as targets.
411 The set of primary points is denoted by $P$ and the set of sensors by $J$.
413 \noindent Let $\alpha_{jp}$ denote the indicator function of whether the primary
414 point $p$ is covered, that is:
416 \alpha_{jp} = \left \{
418 1 & \mbox{if the primary point $p$ is covered} \\
419 & \mbox{by sensor node $j$}, \\
420 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
424 The number of active sensors that cover the primary point $p$ can then be
425 computed by $\sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} * X_{j}$ where:
429 1& \mbox{if sensor $j$ is active,} \\
430 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
434 We define the Overcoverage variable $\Theta_{p}$ as:
436 \Theta_{p} = \left \{
438 0 & \mbox{if the primary point}\\
439 & \mbox{$p$ is not covered,}\\
440 \left( \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} * X_{j} \right)- 1 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
444 \noindent More precisely, $\Theta_{p}$ represents the number of active sensor
445 nodes minus one that cover the primary point~$p$. The Undercoverage variable
446 $U_{p}$ of the primary point $p$ is defined by:
450 1 &\mbox{if the primary point $p$ is not covered,} \\
451 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
456 \noindent Our coverage optimization problem can then be formulated as follows:
457 \begin{equation} \label{eq:ip2r}
460 \min \sum_{p \in P} (w_{\theta} \Theta_{p} + w_{U} U_{p})&\\
461 \textrm{subject to :}&\\
462 \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j} - \Theta_{p}+ U_{p} =1, &\forall p \in P\\
464 %\sum_{t \in T} X_{j,t} \leq \frac{RE_j}{e_t} &\forall j \in J \\
466 \Theta_{p}\in \mathbb{N}, &\forall p \in P\\
467 U_{p} \in \{0,1\}, &\forall p \in P \\
468 X_{j} \in \{0,1\}, &\forall j \in J
474 \item $X_{j}$ : indicates whether or not the sensor $j$ is actively sensing (1
475 if yes and 0 if not);
476 \item $\Theta_{p}$ : {\it overcoverage}, the number of sensors minus one that
477 are covering the primary point $p$;
478 \item $U_{p}$ : {\it undercoverage}, indicates whether or not the primary point
479 $p$ is being covered (1 if not covered and 0 if covered).
482 The first group of constraints indicates that some primary point $p$ should be
483 covered by at least one sensor and, if it is not always the case, overcoverage
484 and undercoverage variables help balancing the restriction equations by taking
485 positive values. Two objectives can be noticed in our model. First, we limit the
486 overcoverage of primary points to activate as few sensors as possible. Second,
487 to avoid a lack of area monitoring in a subregion we minimize the
488 undercoverage. Both weights $w_\theta$ and $w_U$ must be carefully chosen in
489 order to guarantee that the maximum number of points are covered during each
494 \section{\uppercase{Protocol evaluation}}
495 \label{sec:Simulation Results and Analysis}
496 \noindent \subsection{Simulation framework}
498 To assess the performance of our DiLCO protocol, we have used the discrete
499 event simulator OMNeT++ \cite{varga} to run different series of simulations.
500 Table~\ref{table3} gives the chosen parameters setting.
503 \caption{Relevant parameters for network initializing.}
506 % used for centering table
508 % centered columns (4 columns)
510 %inserts double horizontal lines
511 Parameter & Value \\ [0.5ex]
513 %Case & Strategy (with Two Leaders) & Strategy (with One Leader) & Simple Heuristic \\ [0.5ex]
517 % inserts single horizontal line
518 Sensing Field & $(50 \times 25)~m^2 $ \\
519 % inserting body of the table
521 Nodes Number & 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250~nodes \\
523 Initial Energy & 500-700~joules \\
525 Sensing Period & 60 Minutes \\
526 $E_{th}$ & 36 Joules\\
530 % [1ex] adds vertical space
536 % is used to refer this table in the text
539 Simulations with five different node densities going from 50 to 250~nodes were
540 performed considering each time 25~randomly generated networks, to obtain
541 experimental results which are relevant. The nodes are deployed on a field of
542 interest of $(50 \times 25)~m^2 $ in such a way that they cover the field with a
545 We chose as energy consumption model the one proposed proposed by~\cite{ChinhVu}
546 and based on ~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} with slight modifications. The energy
547 consumed by the communications is added and the part relative to a variable
548 sensing range is removed. We also assume that the nodes have the characteristics
549 of the Medusa II sensor node platform \cite{raghunathan2002energy}. A sensor
550 node typically consists of four units: a MicroController Unit, an Atmels AVR
551 ATmega103L in case of Medusa II, to perform the computations; a communication
552 (radio) unit able to send and receive messages; a sensing unit to collect data;
553 a power supply which provides the energy consumed by node. Except the battery,
554 all the other unit can be switched off to save energy according to the node
555 status. Table~\ref{table4} summarizes the energy consumed (in milliWatt per
556 second) by a node for each of its possible status.
559 \caption{Energy consumption model}
562 % used for centering table
564 \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|}
565 % centered columns (4 columns)
567 %inserts double horizontal lines
568 Sensor status & MCU & Radio & Sensing & Power (mW) \\ [0.5ex]
570 % inserts single horizontal line
571 Listening & ON & ON & ON & 20.05 \\
572 % inserting body of the table
574 Active & ON & OFF & ON & 9.72 \\
576 Sleep & OFF & OFF & OFF & 0.02 \\
578 Computation & ON & ON & ON & 26.83 \\
580 %\multicolumn{4}{|c|}{Energy needed to send/receive a 1-bit} & 0.2575\\
586 % is used to refer this table in the text
589 Less influent energy consumption sources like when turning on the radio,
590 starting the sensor node, changing the status of a node, etc., will be neglected
591 for the sake of simplicity. Each node saves energy by switching off its radio
592 once it has received its decision status from the corresponding leader (it can
593 be itself). As explained previously in subsection~\ref{main_idea}, two kinds of
594 packets for communication are considered in our protocol: INFO packet and
595 ActiveSleep packet. To compute the energy needed by a node to transmit or
596 receive such packets, we use the equation giving the energy spent to send a
597 1-bit-content message defined in~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} (we assume
598 symmetric communication costs), and we set their respective size to 112 and
599 24~bits. The energy required to send or receive a 1-bit-content message is thus
602 Each node has an initial energy level, in Joules, which is randomly drawn in
603 $[500-700]$. If its energy provision reaches a value below the threshold
604 $E_{th}=36$~Joules, the minimum energy needed for a node to stay active during
605 one period, it will no longer take part in the coverage task. This value
606 corresponds to the energy needed by the sensing phase, obtained by multiplying
607 the energy consumed in active state (9.72 mW) by the time in seconds for one
608 period (3,600 seconds), and adding the energy for the pre-sensing phases.
609 According to the interval of initial energy, a sensor may be active during at
612 In the simulations, we introduce the following performance metrics to evaluate
613 the efficiency of our approach:
615 %\begin{enumerate}[i)]
617 \item {{\bf Network Lifetime}:} we define the network lifetime as the time until
618 the coverage ratio drops below a predefined threshold. We denote by
619 $Lifetime_{95}$ (respectively $Lifetime_{50}$) the amount of time during which
620 the network can satisfy an area coverage greater than $95\%$ (respectively
621 $50\%$). We assume that the sensor network can fulfill its task until all its
622 nodes have been drained of their energy or it becomes disconnected. Network
623 connectivity is crucial because an active sensor node without connectivity
624 towards a base station cannot transmit any information regarding an observed
625 event in the area that it monitors.
627 \item {{\bf Coverage Ratio (CR)}:} it measures how well the WSN is able to
628 observe the area of interest. In our case, we discretized the sensor field
629 as a regular grid, which yields the following equation to compute the
633 \mbox{CR}(\%) = \frac{\mbox{$n$}}{\mbox{$N$}} \times 100.
635 where $n$ is the number of covered grid points by active sensors of every
636 subregions during the current sensing phase and $N$ is the total number of grid
637 points in the sensing field. In our simulations, we have a layout of $N = 51
638 \times 26 = 1326$ grid points.
640 \item {{\bf Energy Consumption}:} energy consumption (EC) can be seen as the
641 total amount of energy consumed by the sensors during $Lifetime_{95}$
642 or $Lifetime_{50}$, divided by the number of periods. Formally, the computation
643 of EC can be expressed as follows:
646 \mbox{EC} = \frac{\sum\limits_{m=1}^{M} \left( E^{\mbox{com}}_m+E^{\mbox{list}}_m+E^{\mbox{comp}}_m
647 + E^{a}_m+E^{s}_m \right)}{M},
650 where $M$ corresponds to the number of periods. The total amount of energy
651 consumed by the sensors (EC) comes through taking into consideration four main
652 energy factors. The first one, denoted $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{com}}_m$,
653 represents the energy consumption spent by all the nodes for wireless
654 communications during period $m$. $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{list}}_m$, the next
655 factor, corresponds to the energy consumed by the sensors in LISTENING status
656 before receiving the decision to go active or sleep in period $m$.
657 $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{comp}}_m$ refers to the energy needed by all the leader
658 nodes to solve the integer program during a period. Finally, $E^a_{m}$ and
659 $E^s_{m}$ indicate the energy consumed by the whole network in the sensing phase
660 (active and sleeping nodes).
665 %\subsection{Performance Analysis for different subregions}
666 \subsection{Performance analysis}
669 In this subsection, we first focus on the performance of our DiLCO protocol for
670 different numbers of subregions. We consider partitions of the WSN area into
671 $2$, $4$, $8$, $16$, and $32$ subregions. Thus the DiLCO protocol is declined in
672 five versions: DiLCO-2, DiLCO-4, DiLCO-8, DiLCO-16, and DiLCO-32. Simulations
673 without partitioning the area of interest, cases which correspond to a
674 centralized approach, are not presented because they require high execution
675 times to solve the integer program and therefore consume too much energy.
677 We compare our protocol to two other approaches. The first one, called DESK and
678 proposed by ~\cite{ChinhVu} is a fully distributed coverage algorithm. The
679 second one, called GAF ~\cite{xu2001geography}, consists in dividing the region
680 into fixed squares. During the decision phase, in each square, one sensor is
681 chosen to remain active during the sensing phase.
683 \subsubsection{Coverage ratio}
685 Figure~\ref{fig3} shows the average coverage ratio for 150 deployed nodes. It
686 can be seen that both DESK and GAF provide a coverage ratio which is slightly
687 better compared to DiLCO in the first thirty periods. This can be easily
688 explained by the number of active nodes: the optimization process of our
689 protocol activates less nodes than DESK or GAF, resulting in a slight decrease
690 of the coverage ratio. In case of DiLCO-2 (respectively DiLCO-4), the coverage
691 ratio exhibits a fast decrease with the number of periods and reaches zero value
692 in period~18 (respectively 46), whereas the other versions of DiLCO, DESK, and
693 GAF ensure a coverage ratio above 50\% for subsequent periods. We believe that
694 the results obtained with these two methods can be explained by a high
695 consumption of energy and we will check this assumption in the next subsection.
697 Concerning DiLCO-8, DiLCO-16, and DiLCO-32, these methods seem to be more
698 efficient than DESK and GAF, since they can provide the same level of coverage
699 (except in the first periods where DESK and GAF slightly outperform them) for a
700 greater number of periods. In fact, when our protocol is applied with a large
701 number of subregions (from 8 to 32~regions), it activates a restricted number of
702 nodes, and thus enables the extension of the network lifetime.
707 \includegraphics[scale=0.45] {R/CR.pdf}
708 \caption{Coverage ratio}
713 \subsubsection{Energy consumption}
715 Based on the results shown in Figure~\ref{fig3}, we focus on the DiLCO-16 and
716 DiLCO-32 versions of our protocol, and we compare their energy consumption with
717 the DESK and GAF approaches. For each sensor node we measure the energy consumed
718 according to its successive status, for different network densities. We denote
719 by $\mbox{\it Protocol}/50$ (respectively $\mbox{\it Protocol}/95$) the amount
720 of energy consumed while the area coverage is greater than $50\%$ (repectively
721 $95\%$), where {\it Protocol} is one of the four protocols we compare.
722 Figure~\ref{fig95} presents the energy consumptions observed for network sizes
723 going from 50 to 250~nodes. Let us notice that the same network sizes will be
724 used for the different performance metrics.
728 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{R/EC.pdf}
729 \caption{Energy consumption per period}
733 The results depict the good performance of the different versions of our
734 protocol. Indeed, the protocols DiLCO-16/50, DiLCO-32/50, DiLCO-16/95, and
735 DiLCO-32/95 consume less energy than their DESK and GAF counterparts for a
736 similar level of area coverage. This observation reflects the larger number of
737 nodes set active by DESK and GAF.
739 Now, if we consider a same protocol, we can notice that the average consumption
740 per period increases slightly for our protocol when increasing the level of
741 coverage and the number of node, whereas it increases more largely for DESK and
742 GAF. In case of DiLCO, it means that even if a larger network allows to improve
743 the number of periods with a minimum coverage level value, this improvement has
744 a higher energy cost per period due to communication overhead and a more
745 difficult optimization problem. However, in comparison with DESK and GAF, our
746 approach has a reasonable energy overcost.
748 \subsubsection{Execution time}
750 Another interesting point to investigate is the evolution of the execution time
751 with the size of the WSN and the number of subregions. Therefore, we report for
752 every version of our protocol the average execution times in seconds needed to
753 solve the optimization problem for different WSN sizes. The execution times are
754 obtained on a laptop DELL which has an Intel Core~i3~2370~M~(2.4~GHz) dual core
755 processor and a MIPS rating equal to 35330. The corresponding execution times on
756 a MEDUSA II sensor node are then extrapolated according to the MIPS rate of the
757 Atmels AVR ATmega103L microcontroller (6~MHz), which is equal to 6, by
758 multiplying the laptop times by $\left(\frac{35330}{2} \times
759 \frac{1}{6}\right)$. The expected times on a sensor node are reported on
764 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{R/T.pdf}
765 \caption{Execution time in seconds}
769 Figure~\ref{fig8} shows that DiLCO-32 has very low execution times in comparison
770 with other DiLCO versions, because the activity scheduling is tackled by a
771 larger number of leaders and each leader solves an integer problem with a
772 limited number of variables and constraints. Conversely, DiLCO-2 requires to
773 solve an optimization problem with half of the network nodes and thus presents a
774 high execution time. Nevertheless if we refer to Figure~\ref{fig3}, we observe
775 that DiLCO-32 is slightly less efficient than DilCO-16 to maintain as long as
776 possible high coverage. In fact an excessive subdivision of the area of interest
777 prevents it to ensure a good coverage especially on the borders of the
778 subregions. Thus, the optimal number of subregions can be seen as a trade-off
779 between execution time and coverage performance.
781 \subsubsection{Network lifetime}
783 In the next figure, the network lifetime is illustrated. Obviously, the lifetime
784 increases with the network size, whatever the considered protocol, since the
785 correlated node density also increases. A high network density means a high
786 node redundancy which allows to turn-off many nodes and thus to prolong the
791 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{R/LT.pdf}
792 \caption{Network lifetime}
796 As highlighted by Figure~\ref{figLT95}, when the coverage level is relaxed
797 ($50\%$) the network lifetime also improves. This observation reflects the fact
798 that the higher the coverage performance, the more nodes must be active to
799 ensure the wider monitoring. For a similar level of coverage, DiLCO outperforms
800 DESK and GAF for the lifetime of the network. More specifically, if we focus on
801 the larger level of coverage ($95\%$) in the case of our protocol, the subdivision
802 in $16$~subregions seems to be the most appropriate.
805 \section{\uppercase{Conclusion and future work}}
806 \label{sec:Conclusion and Future Works}
808 A crucial problem in WSN is to schedule the sensing activities of the different
809 nodes in order to ensure both coverage of the area of interest and longer
810 network lifetime. The inherent limitations of sensor nodes, in energy provision,
811 communication and computing capacities, require protocols that optimize the use
812 of the available resources to fulfill the sensing task. To address this
813 problem, this paper proposes a two-step approach. Firstly, the field of sensing
814 is divided into smaller subregions using the concept of divide-and-conquer
815 method. Secondly, a distributed protocol called Distributed Lifetime Coverage
816 Optimization is applied in each subregion to optimize the coverage and lifetime
817 performances. In a subregion, our protocol consists in electing a leader node
818 which will then perform a sensor activity scheduling. The challenges include how
819 to select the most efficient leader in each subregion and the best
820 representative set of active nodes to ensure a high level of coverage. To assess
821 the performance of our approach, we compared it with two other approaches using
822 many performance metrics like coverage ratio or network lifetime. We have also
823 studied the impact of the number of subregions chosen to subdivide the area of
824 interest, considering different network sizes. The experiments show that
825 increasing the number of subregions improves the lifetime. The more subregions there are, the more robust the network is against random disconnection
826 resulting from dead nodes. However, for a given sensing field and network size
827 there is an optimal number of subregions. Therefore, in case of our simulation
828 context a subdivision in $16$~subregions seems to be the most relevant. The
829 optimal number of subregions will be investigated in the future.
831 \section*{\uppercase{Acknowledgements}}
833 \noindent As a Ph.D. student, Ali Kadhum IDREES would like to gratefully
834 acknowledge the University of Babylon - IRAQ for the financial support and
835 Campus France for the received support. This paper is also partially funded by
836 the Labex ACTION program (contract ANR-11-LABX-01-01).
839 \bibliographystyle{apalike}
841 \bibliography{Example}}