1 \documentclass[a4paper,twoside]{article}
13 \usepackage{SCITEPRESS}
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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.
55 %period consists of four phases: (i)~Information Exchange, (ii)~Leader
56 %Election, (iii)~Decision, and (iv)~Sensing.
57 The decision process, which
58 results in an activity scheduling vector, is carried out by a leader node
59 through the solving of an integer program.
60 {\color{red} Simulations are conducted using the discret event simulator OMNET++.
61 We refer to the characterictics of a Medusa II sensor for the energy consumption and the time computation.
62 In comparison with two other existing methods, our approach is able to increase the WSN lifetime and provides
63 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.
104 {\color{red} Our previous paper ~\cite{idrees2014coverage} relies almost exclusively on the framework of the DiLCO approach and the coverage problem formulation.
105 In this paper we strengthen our simulations by taking into account the characteristics of a Medusa II sensor ~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} to measure the energy consumption and the computation time.
106 We have implemented two other existing approaches (a distributed one DESK ~\cite{ChinhVu} and a centralized one GAF ~\cite{xu2001geography}) in order to compare their performances with our approach.
107 We also focus on performance analysis based on the number of subregions. }
110 The remainder of the paper continues with Section~\ref{sec:Literature Review}
111 where a review of some related works is presented. The next section describes
112 the DiLCO protocol, followed in Section~\ref{cp} by the coverage model
113 formulation which is used to schedule the activation of
114 sensors. Section~\ref{sec:Simulation Results and Analysis} shows the simulation
115 results. The paper ends with a conclusion and some suggestions for further work
116 in Section~\ref{sec:Conclusion and Future Works}.
118 \section{\uppercase{Literature Review}}
119 \label{sec:Literature Review}
121 \noindent In this section, we summarize some related works regarding the
122 coverage problem and distinguish our DiLCO protocol from the works presented in
125 The most discussed coverage problems in literature can be classified into three
126 types \cite{li2013survey}: area coverage \cite{Misra} where every point inside
127 an area is to be monitored, target coverage \cite{yang2014novel} where the main
128 objective is to cover only a finite number of discrete points called targets,
129 and barrier coverage \cite{Kumar:2005}\cite{kim2013maximum} to prevent intruders
130 from entering into the region of interest. In \cite{Deng2012} authors transform
131 the area coverage problem to the target coverage problem taking into account the
132 intersection points among disks of sensors nodes or between disk of sensor nodes
133 and boundaries. {\it In DiLCO protocol, the area coverage, i.e. the coverage of
134 every point in the sensing region, is transformed to the coverage of a
135 fraction of points called primary points. }
137 The major approach to extend network lifetime while preserving coverage is to
138 divide/organize the sensors into a suitable number of set covers (disjoint or
139 non-disjoint), where each set completely covers a region of interest, and to
140 activate these set covers successively. The network activity can be planned in
141 advance and scheduled for the entire network lifetime or organized in periods,
142 and the set of active sensor nodes is decided at the beginning of each period
143 \cite{ling2009energy}. Active node selection is determined based on the problem
144 requirements (e.g. area monitoring, connectivity, power efficiency). For
145 instance, Jaggi et al. \cite{jaggi2006} address the problem of maximizing
146 network lifetime by dividing sensors into the maximum number of disjoint subsets
147 such that each subset can ensure both coverage and connectivity. A greedy
148 algorithm is applied once to solve this problem and the computed sets are
149 activated in succession to achieve the desired network lifetime. Vu
150 \cite{chin2007}, Padmatvathy et al. \cite{pc10}, propose algorithms working in a
151 periodic fashion where a cover set is computed at the beginning of each period.
152 {\it Motivated by these works, DiLCO protocol works in periods, where each
153 period contains a preliminary phase for information exchange and decisions,
154 followed by a sensing phase where one cover set is in charge of the sensing
157 Various approaches, including centralized, or distributed algorithms, have been
158 proposed to extend the network lifetime. In distributed
159 algorithms~\cite{yangnovel,ChinhVu,qu2013distributed}, information is
160 disseminated throughout the network and sensors decide cooperatively by
161 communicating with their neighbors which of them will remain in sleep mode for a
162 certain period of time. The centralized
163 algorithms~\cite{cardei2005improving,zorbas2010solving,pujari2011high} always
164 provide nearly or close to optimal solution since the algorithm has global view
165 of the whole network. But such a method has the disadvantage of requiring high
166 communication costs, since the node (located at the base station) making the
167 decision needs information from all the sensor nodes in the area and the amount
168 of information can be huge. {\it In order to be suitable for large-scale
169 network, in the DiLCO protocol, the area coverage is divided into several
170 smaller subregions, and in each one, a node called the leader is in charge for
171 selecting the active sensors for the current period.}
173 A large variety of coverage scheduling algorithms has been developed. Many of
174 the existing algorithms, dealing with the maximization of the number of cover
175 sets, are heuristics. These heuristics involve the construction of a cover set
176 by including in priority the sensor nodes which cover critical targets, that is
177 to say targets that are covered by the smallest number of sensors
178 \cite{berman04,zorbas2010solving}. Other approaches are based on mathematical
179 programming formulations~\cite{cardei2005energy,5714480,pujari2011high,Yang2014}
180 and dedicated techniques (solving with a branch-and-bound algorithms available
181 in optimization solver). The problem is formulated as an optimization problem
182 (maximization of the lifetime or number of cover sets) under target coverage and
183 energy constraints. Column generation techniques, well-known and widely
184 practiced techniques for solving linear programs with too many variables, have
186 used~\cite{castano2013column,rossi2012exact,deschinkel2012column}. {\it In DiLCO
187 protocol, each leader, in each subregion, solves an integer program with a
188 double objective consisting in minimizing the overcoverage and limiting the
189 undercoverage. This program is inspired from the work of \cite{pedraza2006}
190 where the objective is to maximize the number of cover sets.}
192 \section{\uppercase{Description of the DiLCO protocol}}
193 \label{sec:The DiLCO Protocol Description}
195 \noindent In this section, we introduce the DiLCO protocol which is distributed
196 on each subregion in the area of interest. It is based on two efficient
197 techniques: network leader election and sensor activity scheduling for coverage
198 preservation and energy conservation, applied periodically to efficiently
199 maximize the lifetime in the network.
201 \subsection{Assumptions and models}
203 \noindent We consider a sensor network composed of static nodes distributed
204 independently and uniformly at random. A high density deployment ensures a high
205 coverage ratio of the interested area at the start. The nodes are supposed to
206 have homogeneous characteristics from a communication and a processing point of
207 view, whereas they have heterogeneous energy provisions. Each node has access
208 to its location thanks, either to a hardware component (like a GPS unit), or a
209 location discovery algorithm.
211 \indent We consider a boolean disk coverage model which is the most widely used
212 sensor coverage model in the literature. Thus, since a sensor has a constant
213 sensing range $R_s$, every space points within a disk centered at a sensor with
214 the radius of the sensing range is said to be covered by this sensor. We also
215 assume that the communication range $R_c \geq 2R_s$. In fact, Zhang and
216 Hou~\cite{Zhang05} proved that if the transmission range fulfills the previous
217 hypothesis, a complete coverage of a convex area implies connectivity among the
218 working nodes in the active mode.
220 \indent For each sensor we also define a set of points called primary
221 points~\cite{idrees2014coverage} to approximate the area coverage it provides,
222 rather than working with a continuous coverage. Thus, a sensing disk
223 corresponding to a sensor node is covered by its neighboring nodes if all its
224 primary points are covered. Obviously, the approximation of coverage is more or
225 less accurate according to the number of primary points.
228 \subsection{Main idea}
230 \noindent We start by applying a divide-and-conquer algorithm to partition the
231 area of interest into smaller areas called subregions and then our protocol is
232 executed simultaneously in each subregion.
236 \includegraphics[width=75mm]{FirstModel.pdf} % 70mm
237 \caption{DiLCO protocol}
241 As shown in Figure~\ref{fig2}, the proposed DiLCO protocol is a periodic
242 protocol where each period is decomposed into 4~phases: Information Exchange,
243 Leader Election, Decision, and Sensing. For each period there will be exactly
244 one cover set in charge of the sensing task. A periodic scheduling is
245 interesting because it enhances the robustness of the network against node
246 failures. First, a node that has not enough energy to complete a period, or
247 which fails before the decision is taken, will be excluded from the scheduling
248 process. Second, if a node fails later, whereas it was supposed to sense the
249 region of interest, it will only affect the quality of the coverage until the
250 definition of a new cover set in the next period. Constraints, like energy
251 consumption, can be easily taken into consideration since the sensors can update
252 and exchange their information during the first phase. Let us notice that the
253 phases before the sensing one (Information Exchange, Leader Election, and
254 Decision) are energy consuming for all the nodes, even nodes that will not be
255 retained by the leader to keep watch over the corresponding area.
257 During the execution of the DiLCO protocol, two kinds of packet will be used:
258 %\begin{enumerate}[(a)]
260 \item INFO packet: sent by each sensor node to all the nodes inside a same
261 subregion for information exchange.
262 \item ActiveSleep packet: sent by the leader to all the nodes in its subregion
263 to inform them to stay Active or to go Sleep during the sensing phase.
266 and each sensor node will have five possible status in the network:
267 %\begin{enumerate}[(a)]
269 \item LISTENING: sensor is waiting for a decision (to be active or not);
270 \item COMPUTATION: sensor applies the optimization process as leader;
271 \item ACTIVE: sensor is active;
272 \item SLEEP: sensor is turned off;
273 \item COMMUNICATION: sensor is transmitting or receiving packet.
277 An outline of the protocol implementation is given by Algorithm~\ref{alg:DiLCO}
278 which describes the execution of a period by a node (denoted by $s_j$ for a
279 sensor node indexed by $j$). At the beginning a node checks whether it has
280 enough energy to stay active during the next sensing phase. If yes, it exchanges
281 information with all the other nodes belonging to the same subregion: it
282 collects from each node its position coordinates, remaining energy ($RE_j$), ID,
283 and the number of one-hop neighbors still alive. Once the first phase is
284 completed, the nodes of a subregion choose a leader to take the decision based
285 on the following criteria with decreasing importance: larger number of
286 neighbors, larger remaining energy, and then in case of equality, larger index.
287 After that, if the sensor node is leader, it will execute the integer program
288 algorithm (see Section~\ref{cp}) which provides a set of sensors planned to be
289 active in the next sensing phase. As leader, it will send an Active-Sleep packet
290 to each sensor in the same subregion to indicate it if it has to be active or
291 not. Alternately, if the sensor is not the leader, it will wait for the
292 Active-Sleep packet to know its state for the coming sensing phase.
295 \begin{algorithm}[h!]
298 %\emph{Initialize the sensor node and determine it's position and subregion} \;
300 \If{ $RE_j \geq E_{th}$ }{
301 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMMUNICATION}\;
302 \emph{Send $INFO()$ packet to other nodes in the subregion}\;
303 \emph{Wait $INFO()$ packet from other nodes in the subregion}\;
304 %\emph{UPDATE $RE_j$ for every sent or received INFO Packet}\;
305 %\emph{ Collect information and construct the list L for all nodes in the subregion}\;
307 %\If{ the received INFO Packet = No. of nodes in it's subregion -1 }{
308 \emph{LeaderID = Leader election}\;
309 \If{$ s_j.ID = LeaderID $}{
310 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMPUTATION}\;
311 \emph{$\left\{\left(X_{1},\dots,X_{k},\dots,X_{J}\right)\right\}$ =
312 Execute Integer Program Algorithm($J$)}\;
313 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMMUNICATION}\;
314 \emph{Send $ActiveSleep()$ to each node $k$ in subregion} \;
315 \emph{Update $RE_j $}\;
318 \emph{$s_j.status$ = LISTENING}\;
319 \emph{Wait $ActiveSleep()$ packet from the Leader}\;
321 \emph{Update $RE_j $}\;
325 \Else { Exclude $s_j$ from entering in the current sensing phase}
328 \caption{DiLCO($s_j$)}
333 \section{\uppercase{Coverage problem formulation}}
337 We formulate the coverage optimization problem with an integer program.
338 The objective function consists in minimizing the undercoverage and the overcoverage of the area as suggested in \cite{pedraza2006}.
339 The area coverage problem is transformed to the coverage of a fraction of points called primary points.
340 Details on the choice and the number of primary points can be found in \cite{idrees2014coverage}. The set of primary points is denoted by $P$
341 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 $p$ :
343 \Theta_{p} = \left \{
345 0 & \mbox{if the primary point}\\
346 & \mbox{$p$ is not covered,}\\
347 \left( \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} * X_{j} \right)- 1 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
351 More precisely, $\Theta_{p}$ represents the number of active sensor
352 nodes minus one that cover the primary point~$p$.
353 In the same way, we define the undercoverage variable
354 $U_{p}$ of the primary point $p$ as:
358 1 &\mbox{if the primary point $p$ is not covered,} \\
359 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
363 There is, of course, a relationship between the three variables $X_j$, $\Theta_p$ and $U_p$ which can be formulated as follows :
365 \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j} - \Theta_{p}+ U_{p} =1, \forall p \in P
367 If the point $p$ is not covered, $U_p=1$, $\sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j}=0$ and $\Theta_{p}=0$ by defintion, so the equality is satisfied.
368 On the contrary, if the point $p$ is covered, $U_p=0$, and $\Theta_{p}=\left( \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j} \right)- 1$.
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
385 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
386 order to guarantee that the maximum number of points are covered during each
398 \indent Our model is based on the model proposed by \cite{pedraza2006} where the
399 objective is to find a maximum number of disjoint cover sets. To accomplish
400 this goal, the authors proposed an integer program which forces undercoverage
401 and overcoverage of targets to become minimal at the same time. They use binary
402 variables $x_{jl}$ to indicate if sensor $j$ belongs to cover set $l$. In our
403 model, we consider that the binary variable $X_{j}$ determines the activation of
404 sensor $j$ in the sensing phase. We also consider primary points as targets.
405 The set of primary points is denoted by $P$ and the set of sensors by $J$.
407 \noindent Let $\alpha_{jp}$ denote the indicator function of whether the primary
408 point $p$ is covered, that is:
410 \alpha_{jp} = \left \{
412 1 & \mbox{if the primary point $p$ is covered} \\
413 & \mbox{by sensor node $j$}, \\
414 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
418 The number of active sensors that cover the primary point $p$ can then be
419 computed by $\sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} * X_{j}$ where:
423 1& \mbox{if sensor $j$ is active,} \\
424 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
428 We define the Overcoverage variable $\Theta_{p}$ as:
430 \Theta_{p} = \left \{
432 0 & \mbox{if the primary point}\\
433 & \mbox{$p$ is not covered,}\\
434 \left( \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} * X_{j} \right)- 1 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
438 \noindent More precisely, $\Theta_{p}$ represents the number of active sensor
439 nodes minus one that cover the primary point~$p$. The Undercoverage variable
440 $U_{p}$ of the primary point $p$ is defined by:
444 1 &\mbox{if the primary point $p$ is not covered,} \\
445 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
450 \noindent Our coverage optimization problem can then be formulated as follows:
451 \begin{equation} \label{eq:ip2r}
454 \min \sum_{p \in P} (w_{\theta} \Theta_{p} + w_{U} U_{p})&\\
455 \textrm{subject to :}&\\
456 \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j} - \Theta_{p}+ U_{p} =1, &\forall p \in P\\
458 %\sum_{t \in T} X_{j,t} \leq \frac{RE_j}{e_t} &\forall j \in J \\
460 \Theta_{p}\in \mathbb{N}, &\forall p \in P\\
461 U_{p} \in \{0,1\}, &\forall p \in P \\
462 X_{j} \in \{0,1\}, &\forall j \in J
468 \item $X_{j}$ : indicates whether or not the sensor $j$ is actively sensing (1
469 if yes and 0 if not);
470 \item $\Theta_{p}$ : {\it overcoverage}, the number of sensors minus one that
471 are covering the primary point $p$;
472 \item $U_{p}$ : {\it undercoverage}, indicates whether or not the primary point
473 $p$ is being covered (1 if not covered and 0 if covered).
476 The first group of constraints indicates that some primary point $p$ should be
477 covered by at least one sensor and, if it is not always the case, overcoverage
478 and undercoverage variables help balancing the restriction equations by taking
479 positive values. Two objectives can be noticed in our model. First, we limit the
480 overcoverage of primary points to activate as few sensors as possible. Second,
481 to avoid a lack of area monitoring in a subregion we minimize the
482 undercoverage. Both weights $w_\theta$ and $w_U$ must be carefully chosen in
483 order to guarantee that the maximum number of points are covered during each
488 \section{\uppercase{Protocol evaluation}}
489 \label{sec:Simulation Results and Analysis}
490 \noindent \subsection{Simulation framework}
492 To assess the performance of our DiLCO protocol, we have used the discrete
493 event simulator OMNeT++ \cite{varga} to run different series of simulations.
494 Table~\ref{table3} gives the chosen parameters setting.
497 \caption{Relevant parameters for network initializing.}
500 % used for centering table
502 % centered columns (4 columns)
504 %inserts double horizontal lines
505 Parameter & Value \\ [0.5ex]
507 %Case & Strategy (with Two Leaders) & Strategy (with One Leader) & Simple Heuristic \\ [0.5ex]
511 % inserts single horizontal line
512 Sensing Field & $(50 \times 25)~m^2 $ \\
513 % inserting body of the table
515 Nodes Number & 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250~nodes \\
517 Initial Energy & 500-700~joules \\
519 Sensing Period & 60 Minutes \\
520 $E_{th}$ & 36 Joules\\
524 % [1ex] adds vertical space
530 % is used to refer this table in the text
533 Simulations with five different node densities going from 50 to 250~nodes were
534 performed considering each time 25~randomly generated networks, to obtain
535 experimental results which are relevant. The nodes are deployed on a field of
536 interest of $(50 \times 25)~m^2 $ in such a way that they cover the field with a
539 We chose as energy consumption model the one proposed proposed by~\cite{ChinhVu}
540 and based on ~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} with slight modifications. The energy
541 consumed by the communications is added and the part relative to a variable
542 sensing range is removed. We also assume that the nodes have the characteristics
543 of the Medusa II sensor node platform \cite{raghunathan2002energy}. A sensor
544 node typically consists of four units: a MicroController Unit, an Atmels AVR
545 ATmega103L in case of Medusa II, to perform the computations; a communication
546 (radio) unit able to send and receive messages; a sensing unit to collect data;
547 a power supply which provides the energy consumed by node. Except the battery,
548 all the other unit can be switched off to save energy according to the node
549 status. Table~\ref{table4} summarizes the energy consumed (in milliWatt per
550 second) by a node for each of its possible status.
553 \caption{Energy consumption model}
556 % used for centering table
558 \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|}
559 % centered columns (4 columns)
561 %inserts double horizontal lines
562 Sensor status & MCU & Radio & Sensing & Power (mW) \\ [0.5ex]
564 % inserts single horizontal line
565 Listening & ON & ON & ON & 20.05 \\
566 % inserting body of the table
568 Active & ON & OFF & ON & 9.72 \\
570 Sleep & OFF & OFF & OFF & 0.02 \\
572 Computation & ON & ON & ON & 26.83 \\
574 %\multicolumn{4}{|c|}{Energy needed to send/receive a 1-bit} & 0.2575\\
580 % is used to refer this table in the text
583 Less influent energy consumption sources like when turning on the radio,
584 starting the sensor node, changing the status of a node, etc., will be neglected
585 for the sake of simplicity. Each node saves energy by switching off its radio
586 once it has received its decision status from the corresponding leader (it can
587 be itself). As explained previously in subsection~\ref{main_idea}, two kinds of
588 packets for communication are considered in our protocol: INFO packet and
589 ActiveSleep packet. To compute the energy needed by a node to transmit or
590 receive such packets, we use the equation giving the energy spent to send a
591 1-bit-content message defined in~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} (we assume
592 symmetric communication costs), and we set their respective size to 112 and
593 24~bits. The energy required to send or receive a 1-bit-content message is thus
596 Each node has an initial energy level, in Joules, which is randomly drawn in
597 $[500-700]$. If its energy provision reaches a value below the threshold
598 $E_{th}=36$~Joules, the minimum energy needed for a node to stay active during
599 one period, it will no longer take part in the coverage task. This value
600 corresponds to the energy needed by the sensing phase, obtained by multiplying
601 the energy consumed in active state (9.72 mW) by the time in seconds for one
602 period (3,600 seconds), and adding the energy for the pre-sensing phases.
603 According to the interval of initial energy, a sensor may be active during at
606 In the simulations, we introduce the following performance metrics to evaluate
607 the efficiency of our approach:
609 %\begin{enumerate}[i)]
611 \item {{\bf Network Lifetime}:} we define the network lifetime as the time until
612 the coverage ratio drops below a predefined threshold. We denote by
613 $Lifetime_{95}$ (respectively $Lifetime_{50}$) the amount of time during which
614 the network can satisfy an area coverage greater than $95\%$ (respectively
615 $50\%$). We assume that the sensor network can fulfill its task until all its
616 nodes have been drained of their energy or it becomes disconnected. Network
617 connectivity is crucial because an active sensor node without connectivity
618 towards a base station cannot transmit any information regarding an observed
619 event in the area that it monitors.
621 \item {{\bf Coverage Ratio (CR)}:} it measures how well the WSN is able to
622 observe the area of interest. In our case, we discretized the sensor field
623 as a regular grid, which yields the following equation to compute the
627 \mbox{CR}(\%) = \frac{\mbox{$n$}}{\mbox{$N$}} \times 100.
629 where $n$ is the number of covered grid points by active sensors of every
630 subregions during the current sensing phase and $N$ is the total number of grid
631 points in the sensing field. In our simulations, we have a layout of $N = 51
632 \times 26 = 1326$ grid points.
634 \item {{\bf Energy Consumption}:} energy consumption (EC) can be seen as the
635 total amount of energy consumed by the sensors during $Lifetime_{95}$
636 or $Lifetime_{50}$, divided by the number of periods. Formally, the computation
637 of EC can be expressed as follows:
640 \mbox{EC} = \frac{\sum\limits_{m=1}^{M} \left( E^{\mbox{com}}_m+E^{\mbox{list}}_m+E^{\mbox{comp}}_m
641 + E^{a}_m+E^{s}_m \right)}{M},
644 where $M$ corresponds to the number of periods. The total amount of energy
645 consumed by the sensors (EC) comes through taking into consideration four main
646 energy factors. The first one, denoted $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{com}}_m$,
647 represents the energy consumption spent by all the nodes for wireless
648 communications during period $m$. $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{list}}_m$, the next
649 factor, corresponds to the energy consumed by the sensors in LISTENING status
650 before receiving the decision to go active or sleep in period $m$.
651 $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{comp}}_m$ refers to the energy needed by all the leader
652 nodes to solve the integer program during a period. Finally, $E^a_{m}$ and
653 $E^s_{m}$ indicate the energy consumed by the whole network in the sensing phase
654 (active and sleeping nodes).
659 %\subsection{Performance Analysis for different subregions}
660 \subsection{Performance analysis}
663 In this subsection, we first focus on the performance of our DiLCO protocol for
664 different numbers of subregions. We consider partitions of the WSN area into
665 $2$, $4$, $8$, $16$, and $32$ subregions. Thus the DiLCO protocol is declined in
666 five versions: DiLCO-2, DiLCO-4, DiLCO-8, DiLCO-16, and DiLCO-32. Simulations
667 without partitioning the area of interest, cases which correspond to a
668 centralized approach, are not presented because they require high execution
669 times to solve the integer program and therefore consume too much energy.
671 We compare our protocol to two other approaches. The first one, called DESK and
672 proposed by ~\cite{ChinhVu} is a fully distributed coverage algorithm. The
673 second one, called GAF ~\cite{xu2001geography}, consists in dividing the region
674 into fixed squares. During the decision phase, in each square, one sensor is
675 chosen to remain active during the sensing phase.
677 \subsubsection{Coverage ratio}
679 Figure~\ref{fig3} shows the average coverage ratio for 150 deployed nodes. It
680 can be seen that both DESK and GAF provide a coverage ratio which is slightly
681 better compared to DiLCO in the first thirty periods. This can be easily
682 explained by the number of active nodes: the optimization process of our
683 protocol activates less nodes than DESK or GAF, resulting in a slight decrease
684 of the coverage ratio. In case of DiLCO-2 (respectively DiLCO-4), the coverage
685 ratio exhibits a fast decrease with the number of periods and reaches zero value
686 in period~18 (respectively 46), whereas the other versions of DiLCO, DESK, and
687 GAF ensure a coverage ratio above 50\% for subsequent periods. We believe that
688 the results obtained with these two methods can be explained by a high
689 consumption of energy and we will check this assumption in the next subsection.
691 Concerning DiLCO-8, DiLCO-16, and DiLCO-32, these methods seem to be more
692 efficient than DESK and GAF, since they can provide the same level of coverage
693 (except in the first periods where DESK and GAF slightly outperform them) for a
694 greater number of periods. In fact, when our protocol is applied with a large
695 number of subregions (from 8 to 32~regions), it activates a restricted number of
696 nodes, and thus enables the extension of the network lifetime.
701 \includegraphics[scale=0.45] {R/CR.pdf}
702 \caption{Coverage ratio}
707 \subsubsection{Energy consumption}
709 Based on the results shown in Figure~\ref{fig3}, we focus on the DiLCO-16 and
710 DiLCO-32 versions of our protocol, and we compare their energy consumption with
711 the DESK and GAF approaches. For each sensor node we measure the energy consumed
712 according to its successive status, for different network densities. We denote
713 by $\mbox{\it Protocol}/50$ (respectively $\mbox{\it Protocol}/95$) the amount
714 of energy consumed while the area coverage is greater than $50\%$ (repectively
715 $95\%$), where {\it Protocol} is one of the four protocols we compare.
716 Figure~\ref{fig95} presents the energy consumptions observed for network sizes
717 going from 50 to 250~nodes. Let us notice that the same network sizes will be
718 used for the different performance metrics.
722 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{R/EC.pdf}
723 \caption{Energy consumption per period}
727 The results depict the good performance of the different versions of our
728 protocol. Indeed, the protocols DiLCO-16/50, DiLCO-32/50, DiLCO-16/95, and
729 DiLCO-32/95 consume less energy than their DESK and GAF counterparts for a
730 similar level of area coverage. This observation reflects the larger number of
731 nodes set active by DESK and GAF.
733 Now, if we consider a same protocol, we can notice that the average consumption
734 per period increases slightly for our protocol when increasing the level of
735 coverage and the number of node, whereas it increases more largely for DESK and
736 GAF. In case of DiLCO, it means that even if a larger network allows to improve
737 the number of periods with a minimum coverage level value, this improvement has
738 a higher energy cost per period due to communication overhead and a more
739 difficult optimization problem. However, in comparison with DESK and GAF, our
740 approach has a reasonable energy overcost.
742 \subsubsection{Execution time}
744 Another interesting point to investigate is the evolution of the execution time
745 with the size of the WSN and the number of subregions. Therefore, we report for
746 every version of our protocol the average execution times in seconds needed to
747 solve the optimization problem for different WSN sizes. The execution times are
748 obtained on a laptop DELL which has an Intel Core~i3~2370~M~(2.4~GHz) dual core
749 processor and a MIPS rating equal to 35330. The corresponding execution times on
750 a MEDUSA II sensor node are then extrapolated according to the MIPS rate of the
751 Atmels AVR ATmega103L microcontroller (6~MHz), which is equal to 6, by
752 multiplying the laptop times by $\left(\frac{35330}{2} \times
753 \frac{1}{6}\right)$. The expected times on a sensor node are reported on
758 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{R/T.pdf}
759 \caption{Execution time in seconds}
763 Figure~\ref{fig8} shows that DiLCO-32 has very low execution times in comparison
764 with other DiLCO versions, because the activity scheduling is tackled by a
765 larger number of leaders and each leader solves an integer problem with a
766 limited number of variables and constraints. Conversely, DiLCO-2 requires to
767 solve an optimization problem with half of the network nodes and thus presents a
768 high execution time. Nevertheless if we refer to Figure~\ref{fig3}, we observe
769 that DiLCO-32 is slightly less efficient than DilCO-16 to maintain as long as
770 possible high coverage. In fact an excessive subdivision of the area of interest
771 prevents it to ensure a good coverage especially on the borders of the
772 subregions. Thus, the optimal number of subregions can be seen as a trade-off
773 between execution time and coverage performance.
775 \subsubsection{Network lifetime}
777 In the next figure, the network lifetime is illustrated. Obviously, the lifetime
778 increases with the network size, whatever the considered protocol, since the
779 correlated node density also increases. A high network density means a high
780 node redundancy which allows to turn-off many nodes and thus to prolong the
785 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{R/LT.pdf}
786 \caption{Network lifetime}
790 As highlighted by Figure~\ref{figLT95}, when the coverage level is relaxed
791 ($50\%$) the network lifetime also improves. This observation reflects the fact
792 that the higher the coverage performance, the more nodes must be active to
793 ensure the wider monitoring. For a similar level of coverage, DiLCO outperforms
794 DESK and GAF for the lifetime of the network. More specifically, if we focus on
795 the larger level of coverage ($95\%$) in the case of our protocol, the subdivision
796 in $16$~subregions seems to be the most appropriate.
799 \section{\uppercase{Conclusion and future work}}
800 \label{sec:Conclusion and Future Works}
802 A crucial problem in WSN is to schedule the sensing activities of the different
803 nodes in order to ensure both coverage of the area of interest and longer
804 network lifetime. The inherent limitations of sensor nodes, in energy provision,
805 communication and computing capacities, require protocols that optimize the use
806 of the available resources to fulfill the sensing task. To address this
807 problem, this paper proposes a two-step approach. Firstly, the field of sensing
808 is divided into smaller subregions using the concept of divide-and-conquer
809 method. Secondly, a distributed protocol called Distributed Lifetime Coverage
810 Optimization is applied in each subregion to optimize the coverage and lifetime
811 performances. In a subregion, our protocol consists in electing a leader node
812 which will then perform a sensor activity scheduling. The challenges include how
813 to select the most efficient leader in each subregion and the best
814 representative set of active nodes to ensure a high level of coverage. To assess
815 the performance of our approach, we compared it with two other approaches using
816 many performance metrics like coverage ratio or network lifetime. We have also
817 studied the impact of the number of subregions chosen to subdivide the area of
818 interest, considering different network sizes. The experiments show that
819 increasing the number of subregions improves the lifetime. The more subregions there are, the more robust the network is against random disconnection
820 resulting from dead nodes. However, for a given sensing field and network size
821 there is an optimal number of subregions. Therefore, in case of our simulation
822 context a subdivision in $16$~subregions seems to be the most relevant. The
823 optimal number of subregions will be investigated in the future.
825 \section*{\uppercase{Acknowledgements}}
827 \noindent As a Ph.D. student, Ali Kadhum IDREES would like to gratefully
828 acknowledge the University of Babylon - IRAQ for the financial support and
829 Campus France for the received support. This paper is also partially funded by
830 the Labex ACTION program (contract ANR-11-LABX-01-01).
833 \bibliographystyle{apalike}
835 \bibliography{Example}}