1 \documentclass[a4paper,twoside]{article}
13 \usepackage{SCITEPRESS}
14 \usepackage[small]{caption}
16 \usepackage[linesnumbered,ruled,vlined,commentsnumbered]{algorithm2e}
17 \usepackage{mathtools}
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 In distributed algorithms~\cite{yangnovel,ChinhVu,qu2013distributed},
142 information is disseminated throughout the network and sensors decide
143 cooperatively by communicating with their neighbors which of them will remain in
144 sleep mode for a certain period of time. The centralized
145 algorithms~\cite{cardei2005improving,zorbas2010solving,pujari2011high} always
146 provide nearly or close to optimal solution since the algorithm has global view
147 of the whole network. But such a method has the disadvantage of requiring high
148 communication costs, since the node (located at the base station) making the
149 decision needs information from all the sensor nodes in the area and the amount of information can be huge.
150 {\it In order to be suitable for large-scale network, in the DiLCO protocol, the area coverage is divided into several smaller
151 subregions, and in each one, a node called the leader is in charge for
152 selecting the active sensors for the current period.}
154 A large variety of coverage scheduling algorithms has been developed. Many of
155 the existing algorithms, dealing with the maximization of the number of cover
156 sets, are heuristics. These heuristics involve the construction of a cover set
157 by including in priority the sensor nodes which cover critical targets, that is
158 to say targets that are covered by the smallest number of sensors \cite{berman04,zorbas2010solving}. Other
159 approaches are based on mathematical programming formulations~\cite{cardei2005energy,5714480,pujari2011high,Yang2014} and dedicated
160 techniques (solving with a branch-and-bound algorithms available in optimization
161 solver). The problem is formulated as an optimization problem (maximization of
162 the lifetime or number of cover sets) under target coverage and energy
163 constraints. Column generation techniques, well-known and widely practiced
164 techniques for solving linear programs with too many variables, have also been
165 used~\cite{castano2013column,rossi2012exact,deschinkel2012column}. {\it In DiLCO protocol, each leader, in each subregion, solves an integer
166 program with a double objective consisting in minimizing the overcoverage and
167 limiting the undercoverage. This program is inspired from the work of
168 \cite{pedraza2006} where the objective is to maximize the number of cover
172 \section{\uppercase{Description of the DiLCO protocol}}
173 \label{sec:The DiLCO Protocol Description}
175 \noindent In this section, we introduce the DiLCO protocol which is distributed
176 on each subregion in the area of interest. It is based on two efficient
177 techniques: network leader election and sensor activity scheduling for coverage
178 preservation and energy conservation, applied periodically to efficiently
179 maximize the lifetime in the network.
181 \subsection{Assumptions and models}
183 \noindent We consider a sensor network composed of static nodes distributed
184 independently and uniformly at random. A high density deployment ensures a high
185 coverage ratio of the interested area at the start. The nodes are supposed to
186 have homogeneous characteristics from a communication and a processing point of
187 view, whereas they have heterogeneous energy provisions. Each node has access
188 to its location thanks, either to a hardware component (like a GPS unit), or a
189 location discovery algorithm.
191 \indent We consider a boolean disk coverage model which is the most widely used
192 sensor coverage model in the literature. Thus, since a sensor has a constant
193 sensing range $R_s$, every space points within a disk centered at a sensor with
194 the radius of the sensing range is said to be covered by this sensor. We also
195 assume that the communication range $R_c \geq 2R_s$. In fact, Zhang and
196 Zhou~\cite{Zhang05} proved that if the transmission range fulfills the previous
197 hypothesis, a complete coverage of a convex area implies connectivity among the
198 working nodes in the active mode.
200 \indent For each sensor we also define a set of points called primary
201 points~\cite{idrees2014coverage} to approximate the area coverage it provides,
202 rather than working with a continuous coverage. Thus, a sensing disk
203 corresponding to a sensor node is covered by its neighboring nodes if all its
204 primary points are covered. Obviously, the approximation of coverage is more or
205 less accurate according to the number of primary points.
208 \subsection{Main idea}
210 \noindent We start by applying a divide-and-conquer algorithm to partition the
211 area of interest into smaller areas called subregions and then our protocol is
212 executed simultaneously in each subregion.
216 \includegraphics[width=75mm]{FirstModel.pdf} % 70mm
217 \caption{DiLCO protocol}
221 As shown in Figure~\ref{fig2}, the proposed DiLCO protocol is a periodic
222 protocol where each period is decomposed into 4~phases: Information Exchange,
223 Leader Election, Decision, and Sensing. For each period there will be exactly
224 one cover set in charge of the sensing task. A periodic scheduling is
225 interesting because it enhances the robustness of the network against node
226 failures. First, a node that has not enough energy to complete a period, or
227 which fails before the decision is taken, will be excluded from the scheduling
228 process. Second, if a node fails later, whereas it was supposed to sense the
229 region of interest, it will only affect the quality of the coverage until the
230 definition of a new cover set in the next period. Constraints, like energy
231 consumption, can be easily taken into consideration since the sensors can update
232 and exchange their information during the first phase. Let us notice that the
233 phases before the sensing one (Information Exchange, Leader Election, and
234 Decision) are energy consuming for all the nodes, even nodes that will not be
235 retained by the leader to keep watch over the corresponding area.
237 During the execution of the DiLCO protocol, two kinds of packet will be used:
238 %\begin{enumerate}[(a)]
240 \item INFO packet: sent by each sensor node to all the nodes inside a same
241 subregion for information exchange.
242 \item ActiveSleep packet: sent by the leader to all the nodes in its subregion
243 to inform them to stay Active or to go Sleep during the sensing phase.
246 and each sensor node will have five possible status in the network:
247 %\begin{enumerate}[(a)]
249 \item LISTENING: sensor is waiting for a decision (to be active or not);
250 \item COMPUTATION: sensor applies the optimization process as leader;
251 \item ACTIVE: sensor is active;
252 \item SLEEP: sensor is turned off;
253 \item COMMUNICATION: sensor is transmitting or receiving packet.
257 An outline of the protocol implementation is given by Algorithm~\ref{alg:DiLCO}
258 which describes the execution of a period by a node (denoted by $s_j$ for a
259 sensor node indexed by $j$). At the beginning a node checks whether it has
260 enough energy to stay active during the next sensing phase. If yes, it exchanges
261 information with all the other nodes belonging to the same subregion: it
262 collects from each node its position coordinates, remaining energy ($RE_j$), ID,
263 and the number of one-hop neighbors still alive. Once the first phase is
264 completed, the nodes of a subregion choose a leader to take the decision based
265 on the following criteria with decreasing importance: larger number of
266 neighbors, larger remaining energy, and then in case of equality, larger index.
267 After that, if the sensor node is leader, it will execute the integer program
268 algorithm (see Section~\ref{cp}) which provides a set of sensors planned to be
269 active in the next sensing phase. As leader, it will send an Active-Sleep packet
270 to each sensor in the same subregion to indicate it if it has to be active or
271 not. Alternately, if the sensor is not the leader, it will wait for the
272 Active-Sleep packet to know its state for the coming sensing phase.
275 \begin{algorithm}[h!]
276 % \KwIn{all the parameters related to information exchange}
277 % \KwOut{$winer-node$ (: the id of the winner sensor node, which is the leader of current round)}
279 %\emph{Initialize the sensor node and determine it's position and subregion} \;
281 \If{ $RE_j \geq E_{th}$ }{
282 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMMUNICATION}\;
283 \emph{Send $INFO()$ packet to other nodes in the subregion}\;
284 \emph{Wait $INFO()$ packet from other nodes in the subregion}\;
285 %\emph{UPDATE $RE_j$ for every sent or received INFO Packet}\;
286 %\emph{ Collect information and construct the list L for all nodes in the subregion}\;
288 %\If{ the received INFO Packet = No. of nodes in it's subregion -1 }{
289 \emph{LeaderID = Leader election}\;
290 \If{$ s_j.ID = LeaderID $}{
291 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMPUTATION}\;
292 \emph{$\left\{\left(X_{1},\dots,X_{k},\dots,X_{J}\right)\right\}$ =
293 Execute Integer Program Algorithm($J$)}\;
294 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMMUNICATION}\;
295 \emph{Send $ActiveSleep()$ to each node $k$ in subregion} \;
296 \emph{Update $RE_j $}\;
299 \emph{$s_j.status$ = LISTENING}\;
300 \emph{Wait $ActiveSleep()$ packet from the Leader}\;
301 % \emph{After receiving Packet, Retrieve the schedule and the $T$ rounds}\;
302 \emph{Update $RE_j $}\;
306 \Else { Exclude $s_j$ from entering in the current sensing phase}
309 \caption{DiLCO($s_j$)}
314 \section{\uppercase{Coverage problem formulation}}
317 \indent Our model is based on the model proposed by \cite{pedraza2006} where the
318 objective is to find a maximum number of disjoint cover sets. To accomplish
319 this goal, the authors proposed an integer program which forces undercoverage
320 and overcoverage of targets to become minimal at the same time. They use binary
321 variables $x_{jl}$ to indicate if sensor $j$ belongs to cover set $l$. In our
322 model, we consider that the binary variable $X_{j}$ determines the activation of
323 sensor $j$ in the sensing phase. We also consider primary points as targets.
324 The set of primary points is denoted by $P$ and the set of sensors by $J$.
326 \noindent Let $\alpha_{jp}$ denote the indicator function of whether the primary
327 point $p$ is covered, that is:
329 \alpha_{jp} = \left \{
331 1 & \mbox{if the primary point $p$ is covered} \\
332 & \mbox{by sensor node $j$}, \\
333 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
337 The number of active sensors that cover the primary point $p$ can then be
338 computed by $\sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} * X_{j}$ where:
342 1& \mbox{if sensor $j$ is active,} \\
343 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
347 We define the Overcoverage variable $\Theta_{p}$ as:
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 \noindent More precisely, $\Theta_{p}$ represents the number of active sensor
358 nodes minus one that cover the primary point~$p$. The Undercoverage variable
359 $U_{p}$ of the primary point $p$ is defined by:
363 1 &\mbox{if the primary point $p$ is not covered,} \\
364 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
369 \noindent Our coverage optimization problem can then be formulated as follows:
370 \begin{equation} \label{eq:ip2r}
373 \min \sum_{p \in P} (w_{\theta} \Theta_{p} + w_{U} U_{p})&\\
374 \textrm{subject to :}&\\
375 \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j} - \Theta_{p}+ U_{p} =1, &\forall p \in P\\
377 %\sum_{t \in T} X_{j,t} \leq \frac{RE_j}{e_t} &\forall j \in J \\
379 \Theta_{p}\in \mathbb{N}, &\forall p \in P\\
380 U_{p} \in \{0,1\}, &\forall p \in P \\
381 X_{j} \in \{0,1\}, &\forall j \in J
387 \item $X_{j}$ : indicates whether or not the sensor $j$ is actively sensing (1
388 if yes and 0 if not);
389 \item $\Theta_{p}$ : {\it overcoverage}, the number of sensors minus one that
390 are covering the primary point $p$;
391 \item $U_{p}$ : {\it undercoverage}, indicates whether or not the primary point
392 $p$ is being covered (1 if not covered and 0 if covered).
395 The first group of constraints indicates that some primary point $p$ should be
396 covered by at least one sensor and, if it is not always the case, overcoverage
397 and undercoverage variables help balancing the restriction equations by taking
398 positive values. Two objectives can be noticed in our model. First, we limit the
399 overcoverage of primary points to activate as few sensors as possible. Second,
400 to avoid a lack of area monitoring in a subregion we minimize the
401 undercoverage. Both weights $w_\theta$ and $w_U$ must be carefully chosen in
402 order to guarantee that the maximum number of points are covered during each
405 \section{\uppercase{Protocol evaluation}}
406 \label{sec:Simulation Results and Analysis}
407 \noindent \subsection{Simulation framework}
409 To assess the performance of our DiLCO protocol, we have used the discrete
410 event simulator OMNeT++ \cite{varga} to run different series of simulations.
411 Table~\ref{table3} gives the chosen parameters setting.
414 \caption{Relevant parameters for network initializing.}
417 % used for centering table
419 % centered columns (4 columns)
421 %inserts double horizontal lines
422 Parameter & Value \\ [0.5ex]
424 %Case & Strategy (with Two Leaders) & Strategy (with One Leader) & Simple Heuristic \\ [0.5ex]
428 % inserts single horizontal line
429 Sensing Field & $(50 \times 25)~m^2 $ \\
430 % inserting body of the table
432 Nodes Number & 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250~nodes \\
434 Initial Energy & 500-700~joules \\
436 Sensing Period & 60 Minutes \\
437 $E_{th}$ & 36 Joules\\
441 % [1ex] adds vertical space
447 % is used to refer this table in the text
450 Simulations with five different node densities going from 50 to 250~nodes were
451 performed considering each time 25~randomly generated networks, to obtain
452 experimental results which are relevant. The nodes are deployed on a field of
453 interest of $(50 \times 25)~m^2 $ in such a way that they cover the field with a
456 We chose as energy consumption model the one proposed proposed by~\cite{ChinhVu}
457 and based on ~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} with slight modifications. The energy
458 consumed by the communications is added and the part relative to a variable
459 sensing range is removed. We also assume that the nodes have the characteristics
460 of the Medusa II sensor node platform \cite{raghunathan2002energy}. A sensor
461 node typically consists of four units: a MicroController Unit, an Atmels AVR
462 ATmega103L in case of Medusa II, to perform the computations; a communication
463 (radio) unit able to send and receive messages; a sensing unit to collect data;
464 a power supply which provides the energy consumed by node. Except the battery,
465 all the other unit can be switched off to save energy according to the node
466 status. Table~\ref{table4} summarizes the energy consumed (in milliWatt per
467 second) by a node for each of its possible status.
470 \caption{Energy consumption model}
473 % used for centering table
475 \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|}
476 % centered columns (4 columns)
478 %inserts double horizontal lines
479 Sensor status & MCU & Radio & Sensing & Power (mW) \\ [0.5ex]
481 % inserts single horizontal line
482 Listening & ON & ON & ON & 20.05 \\
483 % inserting body of the table
485 Active & ON & OFF & ON & 9.72 \\
487 Sleep & OFF & OFF & OFF & 0.02 \\
489 Computation & ON & ON & ON & 26.83 \\
491 %\multicolumn{4}{|c|}{Energy needed to send/receive a 1-bit} & 0.2575\\
497 % is used to refer this table in the text
500 Less influent energy consumption sources like when turning on the radio,
501 starting the sensor node, changing the status of a node, etc., will be neglected
502 for the sake of simplicity. Each node saves energy by switching off its radio
503 once it has received its decision status from the corresponding leader (it can
504 be itself). As explained previously in subsection~\ref{main_idea}, two kinds of
505 packets for communication are considered in our protocol: INFO packet and
506 ActiveSleep packet. To compute the energy needed by a node to transmit or
507 receive such packets, we use the equation giving the energy spent to send a
508 1-bit-content message defined in~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} (we assume
509 symmetric communication costs), and we set their respective size to 112 and
510 24~bits. The energy required to send or receive a 1-bit-content message is thus
513 Each node has an initial energy level, in Joules, which is randomly drawn in the
514 interval $[500-700]$. If its energy provision reaches a value below the
515 threshold $E_{th}=36$~Joules, the minimum energy needed for a node to stay
516 active during one period, it will no longer take part in the coverage task. This
517 value corresponds to the energy needed by the sensing phase, obtained by
518 multiplying the energy consumed in active state (9.72 mW) by the time in seconds
519 for one period (3,600 seconds), and adding the energy for the pre-sensing phases.
520 According to the interval of initial energy, a sensor may be active during at
523 In the simulations, we introduce the following performance metrics to evaluate
524 the efficiency of our approach:
526 %\begin{enumerate}[i)]
528 \item {{\bf Network Lifetime}:} we define the network lifetime as the time until
529 the coverage ratio drops below a predefined threshold. We denote by
530 $Lifetime_{95}$ (respectively $Lifetime_{50}$) the amount of time during which
531 the network can satisfy an area coverage greater than $95\%$ (respectively
532 $50\%$). We assume that the sensor network can fulfill its task until all its
533 nodes have been drained of their energy or it becomes disconnected. Network
534 connectivity is crucial because an active sensor node without connectivity
535 towards a base station cannot transmit any information regarding an observed
536 event in the area that it monitors.
539 \item {{\bf Coverage Ratio (CR)}:} it measures how well the WSN is able to
540 observe the area of interest. In our case, we discretized the sensor field
541 as a regular grid, which yields the following equation to compute the
545 \mbox{CR}(\%) = \frac{\mbox{$n$}}{\mbox{$N$}} \times 100.
547 where $n$ is the number of covered grid points by active sensors of every
548 subregions during the current sensing phase and $N$ is the total number of grid
549 points in the sensing field. In our simulations, we have a layout of $N = 51
550 \times 26 = 1326$ grid points.
552 \item {{\bf Energy Consumption}:} energy consumption (EC) can be seen as the
553 total amount of energy consumed by the sensors during $Lifetime_{95}$ or
554 $Lifetime_{50}$, divided by the number of periods. Formally, the computation
555 of EC can be expressed as follows:
558 \mbox{EC} = \frac{\sum\limits_{m=1}^{M} \left( E^{\mbox{com}}_m+E^{\mbox{list}}_m+E^{\mbox{comp}}_m
559 + E^{a}_m+E^{s}_m \right)}{M},
562 where $M$ corresponds to the number of periods. The total amount of energy consumed by
563 the sensors (EC) comes through taking into consideration four main energy
564 factors. The first one, denoted $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{com}}_m$, represents the
565 energy consumption spent by all the nodes for wireless communications during
566 period $m$. $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{list}}_m$, the next factor, corresponds to
567 the energy consumed by the sensors in LISTENING status before receiving the
568 decision to go active or sleep in period $m$. $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{comp}}_m$
569 refers to the energy needed by all the leader nodes to solve the integer program
570 during a period. Finally, $E^a_{m}$ and $E^s_{m}$ indicate the energy consumed
571 by the whole network in the sensing phase (active and sleeping nodes).
577 %\subsection{Performance Analysis for different subregions}
578 \subsection{Performance analysis}
581 In this subsection, we first focus on the performance of our DiLCO protocol for
582 different numbers of subregions. We consider partitions of the WSN area into
583 $2$, $4$, $8$, $16$, and $32$ subregions. Thus the DiLCO protocol is declined in
584 five versions: DiLCO-2, DiLCO-4, DiLCO-8, DiLCO-16, and DiLCO-32. Simulations
585 without partitioning the area of interest, cases which correspond to a
586 centralized approach, are not presented because they require high execution
587 times to solve the integer program and therefore consume too much energy.
589 We compare our protocol to two other approaches. The first one, called DESK and
590 proposed by ~\cite{ChinhVu} is a fully distributed coverage algorithm. The
591 second one, called GAF ~\cite{xu2001geography}, consists in dividing the region
592 into fixed squares. During the decision phase, in each square, one sensor is
593 chosen to remain active during the sensing phase.
595 \subsubsection{Coverage ratio}
597 Figure~\ref{fig3} shows the average coverage ratio for 150 deployed nodes. It
598 can be seen that both DESK and GAF provide a coverage ratio which is slightly better
599 compared to DiLCO in the first thirty periods. This can be easily explained by
600 the number of active nodes: the optimization process of our protocol activates
601 less nodes than DESK or GAF, resulting in a slight decrease of the coverage
602 ratio. In case of DiLCO-2 (respectively DiLCO-4), the coverage ratio exhibits a
603 fast decrease with the number of periods and reaches zero value in period~18
604 (respectively 46), whereas the other versions of DiLCO, DESK, and GAF ensure a
605 coverage ratio above 50\% for subsequent periods. We believe that the results
606 obtained with these two methods can be explained by a high consumption of energy
607 and we will check this assumption in the next subsection.
609 Concerning DiLCO-8, DiLCO-16, and DiLCO-32, these methods seem to be more
610 efficient than DESK and GAF, since they can provide the same level of coverage
611 (except in the first periods where DESK and GAF slightly outperform them) for a
612 greater number of periods. In fact, when our protocol is applied with a large
613 number of subregions (from 8 to 32~regions), it activates a restricted number of
614 nodes, and thus enables the extension of the network lifetime.
619 \includegraphics[scale=0.45] {R/CR.pdf}
620 \caption{Coverage ratio}
624 \subsubsection{Energy consumption}
626 Based on the results shown in Figure~\ref{fig3}, we focus on the DiLCO-16 and
627 DiLCO-32 versions of our protocol, and we compare their energy consumption with
628 the DESK and GAF approaches. For each sensor node we measure the energy consumed
629 according to its successive status, for different network densities. We denote
630 by $\mbox{\it Protocol}/50$ (respectively $\mbox{\it Protocol}/95$) the amount
631 of energy consumed while the area coverage is greater than $50\%$ (repectively
632 $95\%$), where {\it Protocol} is one of the four protocols we compare.
633 Figure~\ref{fig95} presents the energy consumptions observed for network sizes
634 going from 50 to 250~nodes. Let us notice that the same network sizes will be
635 used for the different performance metrics.
639 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{R/EC.pdf}
640 \caption{Energy consumption per period}
644 The results depict the good performance of the different versions of our
645 protocol. Indeed, the protocols DiLCO-16/50, DiLCO-32/50, DiLCO-16/95, and
646 DiLCO-32/95 consume less energy than their DESK and GAF counterparts for a
647 similar level of area coverage. This observation reflects the larger number of
648 nodes set active by DESK and GAF.
650 \subsubsection{Execution time}
652 Another interesting point to investigate is the evolution of the execution time
653 with the size of the WSN and the number of subregions. Therefore, we report for
654 every version of our protocol the average execution times in seconds needed to
655 solve the optimization problem for different WSN sizes. The execution times are
656 obtained on a laptop DELL which has an Intel Core~i3~2370~M~(2.4~GHz) dual core
657 processor and a MIPS rating equal to 35330. The corresponding execution times on
658 a MEDUSA II sensor node are then extrapolated according to the MIPS rate of the
659 Atmels AVR ATmega103L microcontroller (6~MHz), which is equal to 6, by
660 multiplying the laptop times by $\left(\frac{35330}{2} \times
661 \frac{1}{6}\right)$. The expected times on a sensor node are reported on
666 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{R/T.pdf}
667 \caption{Execution time in seconds}
671 Figure~\ref{fig8} shows that DiLCO-32 has very low execution times in comparison
672 with other DiLCO versions, because the activity scheduling is tackled by a
673 larger number of leaders and each leader solves an integer problem with a
674 limited number of variables and constraints. Conversely, DiLCO-2 requires to
675 solve an optimization problem with half of the network nodes and thus presents a
676 high execution time. Nevertheless if we refer to Figure~\ref{fig3}, we observe
677 that DiLCO-32 is slightly less efficient than DilCO-16 to maintain as long as
678 possible high coverage. In fact an excessive subdivision of the area of interest
679 prevents it to ensure a good coverage especially on the borders of the
680 subregions. Thus, the optimal number of subregions can be seen as a trade-off
681 between execution time and coverage performance.
683 \subsubsection{Network lifetime}
685 In the next figure, the network lifetime is illustrated. Obviously, the lifetime
686 increases with the network size, whatever the considered protocol, since the
687 correlated node density also increases. A high network density means a high
688 node redundancy which allows to turn-off many nodes and thus to prolong the
693 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{R/LT.pdf}
694 \caption{Network lifetime}
698 As highlighted by Figure~\ref{figLT95}, when the coverage level is relaxed
699 ($50\%$) the network lifetime also improves. This observation reflects the fact
700 that the higher the coverage performance, the more nodes must be active to
701 ensure the wider monitoring. For a similar level of coverage, DiLCO outperforms
702 DESK and GAF for the lifetime of the network. More specifically, if we focus on
703 the larger level of coverage ($95\%$) in the case of our protocol, the subdivision
704 in $16$~subregions seems to be the most appropriate.
706 \section{\uppercase{Conclusion and future work}}
707 \label{sec:Conclusion and Future Works}
709 A crucial problem in WSN is to schedule the sensing activities of the different
710 nodes in order to ensure both coverage of the area of interest and longer
711 network lifetime. The inherent limitations of sensor nodes, in energy provision,
712 communication and computing capacities, require protocols that optimize the use
713 of the available resources to fulfill the sensing task. To address this
714 problem, this paper proposes a two-step approach. Firstly, the field of sensing
715 is divided into smaller subregions using the concept of divide-and-conquer
716 method. Secondly, a distributed protocol called Distributed Lifetime Coverage
717 Optimization is applied in each subregion to optimize the coverage and lifetime
718 performances. In a subregion, our protocol consists in electing a leader node
719 which will then perform a sensor activity scheduling. The challenges include how
720 to select the most efficient leader in each subregion and the best
721 representative set of active nodes to ensure a high level of coverage. To assess
722 the performance of our approach, we compared it with two other approaches using
723 many performance metrics like coverage ratio or network lifetime. We have also
724 studied the impact of the number of subregions chosen to subdivide the area of
725 interest, considering different network sizes. The experiments show that
726 increasing the number of subregions improves the lifetime. The more subregions there are, the more robust the network is against random disconnection
727 resulting from dead nodes. However, for a given sensing field and network size
728 there is an optimal number of subregions. Therefore, in case of our simulation
729 context a subdivision in $16$~subregions seems to be the most relevant. The
730 optimal number of subregions will be investigated in the future.
732 \section*{\uppercase{Acknowledgements}}
734 \noindent As a Ph.D. student, Ali Kadhum IDREES would like to gratefully
735 acknowledge the University of Babylon - IRAQ for the financial support and
736 Campus France for the received support. This paper is also partially funded by
737 the Labex ACTION program (contract ANR-11-LABX-01-01).
740 \bibliographystyle{apalike}
742 \bibliography{Example}}