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27 %\title{Authors' Instructions \subtitle{Preparation of Camera-Ready Contributions to SCITEPRESS Proceedings} }
29 \title{Distributed Lifetime Coverage Optimization Protocol \\
30 in Wireless Sensor Networks}
32 \author{Ali Kadhum Idrees$^{a,b}$, Karine Deschinkel$^{a}$,\\ Michel Salomon$^{a}$, and Rapha\"el Couturier$^{a}$\\
33 $^{a}$FEMTO-ST Institute, UMR 6174 CNRS, \\ University Bourgogne Franche-Comt\'e, Belfort, France\\
34 $^{b}${\em{Department of Computer Science, University of Babylon, Babylon, Iraq}}\\
35 email: ali.idness@edu.univ-fcomte.fr,\\ $\lbrace$karine.deschinkel, michel.salomon, raphael.couturier$\rbrace$@univ-fcomte.fr}
37 %\author{Ali Kadhum Idrees$^{a,b}$, Karine Deschinkel$^{a}$,\\ Michel Salomon$^{a}$, and Rapha\"el Couturier $^{a}$ \\
38 %$^{a}${\em{FEMTO-ST Institute, UMR 6174 CNRS, University Bourgogne Franche-Comt\'e,\\ Belfort, France}} \\
39 %$^{b}${\em{Department of Computer Science, University of Babylon, Babylon, Iraq}} }
43 %\keywords{Wireless Sensor Networks, Area Coverage, Network lifetime,Optimization, Scheduling.}
45 \abstract{ One of the main research challenges faced in Wireless Sensor Networks
46 (WSNs) is to preserve continuously and effectively the coverage of an area (or
47 region) of interest to be monitored, while simultaneously preventing as much
48 as possible a network failure due to battery-depleted nodes. In this paper we
49 propose a protocol, called Distributed Lifetime Coverage Optimization protocol
50 (DiLCO), which maintains the coverage and improves the lifetime of a wireless
51 sensor network. First, we partition the area of interest into subregions using
52 a classical divide-and-conquer method. Our DiLCO protocol is then distributed
53 on the sensor nodes in each subregion in a second step. To fulfill our
54 objective, the proposed protocol combines two effective techniques: a leader
55 election in each subregion, followed by an optimization-based node activity
56 scheduling performed by each elected leader. This two-step process takes
57 place periodically, in order to choose a small set of nodes remaining active
58 for sensing during a time slot. Each set is built to ensure coverage at a low
59 energy cost, allowing to optimize the network lifetime.
61 %period consists of four phases: (i)~Information Exchange, (ii)~Leader
62 %Election, (iii)~Decision, and (iv)~Sensing. The decision process, which
63 % results in an activity scheduling vector, is carried out by a leader node
64 % through the solving of an integer program.
66 Simulations are conducted using the discret event simulator
67 OMNET++. We refer to the characterictics of a Medusa II sensor for
68 the energy consumption and the computation time. In comparison with
69 two other existing methods, our approach is able to increase the WSN
70 lifetime and provides improved coverage performance. }
78 \section{\uppercase{Introduction}}
79 \label{sec:introduction}
82 Energy efficiency is a crucial issue in wireless sensor networks since sensory
83 consumption, in order to maximize the network lifetime, represents the major
84 difficulty when designing WSNs. As a consequence, one of the scientific research
85 challenges in WSNs, which has been addressed by a large amount of literature
86 during the last few years, is the design of energy efficient approaches for
87 coverage and connectivity~\cite{conti2014mobile}. Coverage reflects how well a
88 sensor field is monitored. On the one hand we want to monitor the area of
89 interest in the most efficient way~\cite{Nayak04}, \textcolor{blue}{which means
90 that we want to maintain the best coverage as long as possible}. On the other
91 hand we want to use as little energy as possible. Sensor nodes are
92 battery-powered with no means of recharging or replacing, usually due to
93 environmental (hostile or unpractical environments) or cost reasons. Therefore,
94 it is desired that the WSNs are deployed with high densities so as to exploit
95 the overlapping sensing regions of some sensor nodes to save energy by turning
96 off some of them during the sensing phase to prolong the network
97 lifetime. \textcolor{blue}{A WSN can use various types of sensors such as
98 \cite{ref17,ref19}: thermal, seismic, magnetic, visual, infrared, acoustic,
99 and radar. These sensors are capable of observing different physical
100 conditions such as: temperature, humidity, pressure, speed, direction,
101 movement, light, soil makeup, noise levels, presence or absence of certain
102 kinds of objects, and mechanical stress levels on attached objects.
103 Consequently, there is a wide range of WSN applications such as~\cite{ref22}:
104 health-care, environment, agriculture, public safety, military, transportation
105 systems, and industry applications.}
107 In this paper we design a protocol that focuses on the area coverage problem
108 with the objective of maximizing the network lifetime. Our proposition, the
109 Distributed Lifetime Coverage Optimization (DiLCO) protocol, maintains the
110 coverage and improves the lifetime in WSNs. The area of interest is first
111 divided into subregions using a divide-and-conquer algorithm and an activity
112 scheduling for sensor nodes is then planned by the elected leader in each
113 subregion. In fact, the nodes in a subregion can be seen as a cluster where each
114 node sends sensing data to the cluster head or the sink node. Furthermore, the
115 activities in a subregion/cluster can continue even if another cluster stops due
116 to too many node failures. Our DiLCO protocol considers periods, where a period
117 starts with a discovery phase to exchange information between sensors of the
118 same subregion, in order to choose in a suitable manner a sensor node (the
119 leader) to carry out the coverage strategy. In each subregion the activation of
120 the sensors for the sensing phase of the current period is obtained by solving
121 an integer program. The resulting activation vector is broadcast by a leader
122 to every node of its subregion.
125 Our previous paper ~\cite{idrees2014coverage} relies almost exclusively on the
126 framework of the DiLCO approach and the coverage problem formulation. In this
127 paper we made more realistic simulations by taking into account the
128 characteristics of a Medusa II sensor ~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} to measure
129 the energy consumption and the computation time. We have implemented two other
130 existing \textcolor{blue}{and distributed approaches} (DESK ~\cite{ChinhVu}, and
131 GAF ~\cite{xu2001geography}) in order to compare their performances with our
132 approach. We also focus on performance analysis based on the number of
136 The remainder of the paper continues with Section~\ref{sec:Literature Review}
137 where a review of some related works is presented. The next section describes
138 the DiLCO protocol, followed in Section~\ref{cp} by the coverage model
139 formulation which is used to schedule the activation of
140 sensors. Section~\ref{sec:Simulation Results and Analysis} shows the simulation
141 results. The paper ends with a conclusion and some suggestions for further work
142 in Section~\ref{sec:Conclusion and Future Works}.
144 \section{\uppercase{Literature Review}}
145 \label{sec:Literature Review}
147 \noindent In this section, we summarize some related works regarding the
148 coverage problem and distinguish our DiLCO protocol from the works presented in
151 The most discussed coverage problems in literature can be classified into three
152 types \cite{li2013survey}: area coverage \cite{Misra} where every point inside
153 an area is to be monitored, target coverage \cite{yang2014novel} where the main
154 objective is to cover only a finite number of discrete points called targets,
155 and barrier coverage \cite{Kumar:2005}\cite{kim2013maximum} to prevent intruders
156 from entering into the region of interest. In \cite{Deng2012} authors transform
157 the area coverage problem to the target coverage problem taking into account the
158 intersection points among disks of sensors nodes or between disk of sensor nodes
159 and boundaries. {\it In DiLCO protocol, the area coverage, i.e. the coverage of
160 every point in the sensing region, is transformed to the coverage of a
161 fraction of points called primary points. }
163 The major approach to extend network lifetime while preserving coverage is to
164 divide/organize the sensors into a suitable number of set covers (disjoint or
165 non-disjoint), where each set completely covers a region of interest, and to
166 activate these set covers successively. The network activity can be planned in
167 advance and scheduled for the entire network lifetime or organized in periods,
168 and the set of active sensor nodes is decided at the beginning of each period
169 \cite{ling2009energy}. Active node selection is determined based on the problem
170 requirements (e.g. area monitoring, connectivity, power efficiency). For
171 instance, Jaggi et al. \cite{jaggi2006} address the problem of maximizing
172 network lifetime by dividing sensors into the maximum number of disjoint subsets
173 such that each subset can ensure both coverage and connectivity. A greedy
174 algorithm is applied once to solve this problem and the computed sets are
175 activated in succession to achieve the desired network lifetime. Vu
176 \cite{chin2007}, Padmatvathy et al. \cite{pc10}, propose algorithms working in a
177 periodic fashion where a cover set is computed at the beginning of each period.
178 {\it Motivated by these works, DiLCO protocol works in periods, where each
179 period contains a preliminary phase for information exchange and decisions,
180 followed by a sensing phase where one cover set is in charge of the sensing
183 Various approaches, including centralized, or distributed algorithms, have been
184 proposed to extend the network lifetime. In distributed
185 algorithms~\cite{yangnovel,ChinhVu,qu2013distributed}, information is
186 disseminated throughout the network and sensors decide cooperatively by
187 communicating with their neighbors which of them will remain in sleep mode for a
188 certain period of time. The centralized
189 algorithms~\cite{cardei2005improving,zorbas2010solving,pujari2011high} always
190 provide nearly or close to optimal solution since the algorithm has global view
191 of the whole network. But such a method has the disadvantage of requiring high
192 communication costs, since the node (located at the base station) making the
193 decision needs information from all the sensor nodes in the area and the amount
194 of information can be huge. {\it In order to be suitable for large-scale
195 network, in the DiLCO protocol, the area coverage is divided into several
196 smaller subregions, and in each one, a node called the leader is in charge for
197 selecting the active sensors for the current period.}
199 A large variety of coverage scheduling algorithms has been developed. Many of
200 the existing algorithms, dealing with the maximization of the number of cover
201 sets, are heuristics. These heuristics involve the construction of a cover set
202 by including in priority the sensor nodes which cover critical targets, that is
203 to say targets that are covered by the smallest number of sensors
204 \cite{berman04,zorbas2010solving}. Other approaches are based on mathematical
205 programming formulations~\cite{cardei2005energy,5714480,pujari2011high,Yang2014}
206 and dedicated techniques (solving with a branch-and-bound algorithms available
207 in optimization solver). The problem is formulated as an optimization problem
208 (maximization of the lifetime or number of cover sets) under target coverage and
209 energy constraints. Column generation techniques, well-known and widely
210 practiced techniques for solving linear programs with too many variables, have
212 used~\cite{castano2013column,rossi2012exact,deschinkel2012column}. {\it In DiLCO
213 protocol, each leader, in each subregion, solves an integer program with a
214 double objective consisting in minimizing the overcoverage and limiting the
215 undercoverage. This program is inspired from the work of \cite{pedraza2006}
216 where the objective is to maximize the number of cover sets.}
218 \section{\uppercase{Description of the DiLCO protocol}}
219 \label{sec:The DiLCO Protocol Description}
221 \noindent In this section, we introduce the DiLCO protocol which is distributed
222 on each subregion in the area of interest. It is based on two efficient
223 techniques: network leader election and sensor activity scheduling for coverage
224 preservation and energy conservation, applied periodically to efficiently
225 maximize the lifetime in the network.
227 \subsection{Assumptions and models}
229 \noindent We consider a sensor network composed of static nodes distributed
230 independently and uniformly at random. A high density deployment ensures a high
231 coverage ratio of the interested area at the start. The nodes are supposed to
232 have homogeneous characteristics from a communication and a processing point of
233 view, whereas they have heterogeneous energy provisions. Each node has access
234 to its location thanks, either to a hardware component (like a GPS unit), or a
235 location discovery algorithm.
237 \indent We consider a boolean disk coverage model which is the most widely used
238 sensor coverage model in the literature. Thus, since a sensor has a constant
239 sensing range $R_s$, every space points within a disk centered at a sensor with
240 the radius of the sensing range is said to be covered by this sensor. We also
241 assume that the communication range $R_c \geq 2R_s$. In fact, Zhang and
242 Hou~\cite{Zhang05} proved that if the transmission range fulfills the previous
243 hypothesis, a complete coverage of a convex area implies connectivity among the
244 working nodes in the active mode.
246 \indent For each sensor we also define a set of points called primary
247 points~\cite{idrees2014coverage} to approximate the area coverage it provides,
248 rather than working with a continuous coverage. Thus, a sensing disk
249 corresponding to a sensor node is covered by its neighboring nodes if all its
250 primary points are covered. Obviously, the approximation of coverage is more or
251 less accurate according to the number of primary points.
254 \subsection{Main idea}
256 \noindent We start by applying a divide-and-conquer algorithm to partition the
257 area of interest into smaller areas called subregions and then our protocol is
258 executed simultaneously in each subregion. \textcolor{blue}{Sensor nodes are assumed to
259 be deployed almost uniformly over the region and the subdivision of the area of interest is regular.}
263 \includegraphics[width=75mm]{FirstModel.pdf} % 70mm
264 \caption{DiLCO protocol}
268 As shown in Figure~\ref{fig2}, the proposed DiLCO protocol is a periodic
269 protocol where each period is decomposed into 4~phases: Information Exchange,
270 Leader Election, Decision, and Sensing. For each period there will be exactly
271 one cover set in charge of the sensing task. A periodic scheduling is
272 interesting because it enhances the robustness of the network against node failures.
273 % \textcolor{blue}{Many WSN applications have communication requirements that are periodic and known previously such as collecting temperature statistics at regular intervals. This periodic nature can be used to provide a regular schedule to sensor nodes and thus avoid a sensor failure. If the period time increases, the reliability and energy consumption are decreased and vice versa}.
274 First, a node that has not enough energy to complete a period, or
275 which fails before the decision is taken, will be excluded from the scheduling
276 process. Second, if a node fails later, whereas it was supposed to sense the
277 region of interest, it will only affect the quality of the coverage until the
278 definition of a new cover set in the next period. Constraints, like energy
279 consumption, can be easily taken into consideration since the sensors can update
280 and exchange their information during the first phase. Let us notice that the
281 phases before the sensing one (Information Exchange, Leader Election, and
282 Decision) are energy consuming for all the nodes, even nodes that will not be
283 retained by the leader to keep watch over the corresponding area.
285 During the execution of the DiLCO protocol, two kinds of packet will be used:
286 %\begin{enumerate}[(a)]
288 \item INFO packet: sent by each sensor node to all the nodes inside a same
289 subregion for information exchange.
290 \item ActiveSleep packet: sent by the leader to all the nodes in its subregion
291 to inform them to stay Active or to go Sleep during the sensing phase.
294 and each sensor node will have five possible status in the network:
295 %\begin{enumerate}[(a)]
297 \item LISTENING: sensor is waiting for a decision (to be active or not);
298 \item COMPUTATION: sensor applies the optimization process as leader;
299 \item ACTIVE: sensor is active;
300 \item SLEEP: sensor is turned off;
301 \item COMMUNICATION: sensor is transmitting or receiving packet.
305 An outline of the protocol implementation is given by Algorithm~\ref{alg:DiLCO}
306 which describes the execution of a period by a node (denoted by $s_j$ for a
307 sensor node indexed by $j$). At the beginning a node checks whether it has
308 enough energy \textcolor{blue}{(its energy should be greater than a fixed
309 treshold $E_{th}$)} to stay active during the next sensing phase. If yes, it
310 exchanges information with all the other nodes belonging to the same subregion:
311 it collects from each node its position coordinates, remaining energy ($RE_j$),
312 ID, and the number of one-hop neighbors still alive. \textcolor{blue}{INFO
313 packet contains two parts: header and data payload. The sensor ID is included
314 in the header, where the header size is 8 bits. The data part includes
315 position coordinates (64 bits), remaining energy (32 bits), and the number of
316 one-hop live neighbors (8 bits). Therefore the size of the INFO packet is 112
317 bits.} Once the first phase is completed, the nodes of a subregion choose a
318 leader to take the decision based on the following criteria with decreasing
319 importance: larger number of neighbors, larger remaining energy, and then in
320 case of equality, larger index. After that, if the sensor node is leader, it
321 will solve an integer program (see Section~\ref{cp}). \textcolor{blue}{This
322 integer program contains boolean variables $X_j$ where ($X_j=1$) means that
323 sensor $j$ will be active in the next sensing phase. Only sensors with enough
324 remaining energy are involved in the integer program ($J$ is the set of all
325 sensors involved). As the leader consumes energy (computation energy is
326 denoted by $E^{comp}$) to solve the optimization problem, it will be included
327 in the integer program only if it has enough energy to achieve the computation
328 and to stay alive during the next sensing phase, that is to say if $RE_j >
329 E^{comp}+E_{th}$. Once the optimization problem is solved, each leader will
330 send an ActiveSleep packet to each sensor in the same subregion to indicate it
331 if it has to be active or not. Otherwise, if the sensor is not the leader, it
332 will wait for the ActiveSleep packet to know its state for the coming sensing
334 %which provides a set of sensors planned to be
335 %active in the next sensing phase.
337 \begin{algorithm}[h!]
340 %\emph{Initialize the sensor node and determine it's position and subregion} \;
342 \If{ $RE_j \geq E_{th}$ }{
343 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMMUNICATION}\;
344 \emph{Send $INFO()$ packet to other nodes in the subregion}\;
345 \emph{Wait $INFO()$ packet from other nodes in the subregion}\;
346 %\emph{UPDATE $RE_j$ for every sent or received INFO Packet}\;
347 %\emph{ Collect information and construct the list L for all nodes in the subregion}\;
349 %\If{ the received INFO Packet = No. of nodes in it's subregion -1 }{
350 \emph{LeaderID = Leader election}\;
351 \If{$ s_j.ID = LeaderID $}{
352 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMPUTATION}\;
353 \emph{$\left\{\left(X_{1},\dots,X_{k},\dots,X_{J}\right)\right\}$ =
354 Execute Integer Program Algorithm($J$)}\;
355 \emph{$s_j.status$ = COMMUNICATION}\;
356 \emph{Send $ActiveSleep()$ to each node $k$ in subregion} \;
357 \emph{Update $RE_j $}\;
360 \emph{$s_j.status$ = LISTENING}\;
361 \emph{Wait $ActiveSleep()$ packet from the Leader}\;
363 \emph{Update $RE_j $}\;
367 \Else { Exclude $s_j$ from entering in the current sensing phase}
370 \caption{DiLCO($s_j$)}
375 \section{\uppercase{Coverage problem formulation}}
379 We formulate the coverage optimization problem with an integer program.
380 The objective function consists in minimizing the undercoverage and the overcoverage of the area as suggested in \cite{pedraza2006}.
381 The area coverage problem is expressed as the coverage of a fraction of points called primary points.
382 Details on the choice and the number of primary points can be found in \cite{idrees2014coverage}. The set of primary points is denoted by $P$
383 and the set of alive 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 $p$ :
385 \Theta_{p} = \left \{
387 0 & \mbox{if the primary point}\\
388 & \mbox{$p$ is not covered,}\\
389 \left( \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} * X_{j} \right)- 1 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
393 More precisely, $\Theta_{p}$ represents the number of active sensor
394 nodes minus one that cover the primary point~$p$.
395 In the same way, we define the undercoverage variable
396 $U_{p}$ of the primary point $p$ as:
400 1 &\mbox{if the primary point $p$ is not covered,} \\
401 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
405 There is, of course, a relationship between the three variables $X_j$, $\Theta_p$, and $U_p$ which can be formulated as follows :
407 \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j} - \Theta_{p}+ U_{p} =1, \forall p \in P
409 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.
410 On the contrary, if the point $p$ is covered, $U_p=0$, and $\Theta_{p}=\left( \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j} \right)- 1$.
411 \noindent Our coverage optimization problem can then be formulated as follows:
412 \begin{equation} \label{eq:ip2r}
415 \min \sum_{p \in P} (w_{\theta} \Theta_{p} + w_{U} U_{p})&\\
416 \textrm{subject to :}&\\
417 \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j} - \Theta_{p}+ U_{p} =1, &\forall p \in P\\
419 %\sum_{t \in T} X_{j,t} \leq \frac{RE_j}{e_t} &\forall j \in J \\
421 \Theta_{p}\in \mathbb{N}, &\forall p \in P\\
422 U_{p} \in \{0,1\}, &\forall p \in P \\
423 X_{j} \in \{0,1\}, &\forall j \in J
427 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. \textcolor{blue}{ By
428 choosing $w_{U}$ much larger than $w_{\theta}$, the coverage of a
429 maximum of primary points is ensured. Then for the same number of covered
430 primary points, the solution with a minimal number of active sensors is
432 %Both weights $w_\theta$ and $w_U$ must be carefully chosen in
433 %order to guarantee that the maximum number of points are covered during each
445 \indent Our model is based on the model proposed by \cite{pedraza2006} where the
446 objective is to find a maximum number of disjoint cover sets. To accomplish
447 this goal, the authors proposed an integer program which forces undercoverage
448 and overcoverage of targets to become minimal at the same time. They use binary
449 variables $x_{jl}$ to indicate if sensor $j$ belongs to cover set $l$. In our
450 model, we consider that the binary variable $X_{j}$ determines the activation of
451 sensor $j$ in the sensing phase. We also consider primary points as targets.
452 The set of primary points is denoted by $P$ and the set of sensors by $J$.
454 \noindent Let $\alpha_{jp}$ denote the indicator function of whether the primary
455 point $p$ is covered, that is:
457 \alpha_{jp} = \left \{
459 1 & \mbox{if the primary point $p$ is covered} \\
460 & \mbox{by sensor node $j$}, \\
461 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
465 The number of active sensors that cover the primary point $p$ can then be
466 computed by $\sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} * X_{j}$ where:
470 1& \mbox{if sensor $j$ is active,} \\
471 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
475 We define the Overcoverage variable $\Theta_{p}$ as:
477 \Theta_{p} = \left \{
479 0 & \mbox{if the primary point}\\
480 & \mbox{$p$ is not covered,}\\
481 \left( \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} * X_{j} \right)- 1 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
485 \noindent More precisely, $\Theta_{p}$ represents the number of active sensor
486 nodes minus one that cover the primary point~$p$. The Undercoverage variable
487 $U_{p}$ of the primary point $p$ is defined by:
491 1 &\mbox{if the primary point $p$ is not covered,} \\
492 0 & \mbox{otherwise.}\\
497 \noindent Our coverage optimization problem can then be formulated as follows:
498 \begin{equation} \label{eq:ip2r}
501 \min \sum_{p \in P} (w_{\theta} \Theta_{p} + w_{U} U_{p})&\\
502 \textrm{subject to :}&\\
503 \sum_{j \in J} \alpha_{jp} X_{j} - \Theta_{p}+ U_{p} =1, &\forall p \in P\\
505 %\sum_{t \in T} X_{j,t} \leq \frac{RE_j}{e_t} &\forall j \in J \\
507 \Theta_{p}\in \mathbb{N}, &\forall p \in P\\
508 U_{p} \in \{0,1\}, &\forall p \in P \\
509 X_{j} \in \{0,1\}, &\forall j \in J
515 \item $X_{j}$ : indicates whether or not the sensor $j$ is actively sensing (1
516 if yes and 0 if not);
517 \item $\Theta_{p}$ : {\it overcoverage}, the number of sensors minus one that
518 are covering the primary point $p$;
519 \item $U_{p}$ : {\it undercoverage}, indicates whether or not the primary point
520 $p$ is being covered (1 if not covered and 0 if covered).
523 The first group of constraints indicates that some primary point $p$ should be
524 covered by at least one sensor and, if it is not always the case, overcoverage
525 and undercoverage variables help balancing the restriction equations by taking
526 positive values. Two objectives can be noticed in our model. First, we limit the
527 overcoverage of primary points to activate as few sensors as possible. Second,
528 to avoid a lack of area monitoring in a subregion we minimize the
529 undercoverage. Both weights $w_\theta$ and $w_U$ must be carefully chosen in
530 order to guarantee that the maximum number of points are covered during each
535 \section{\uppercase{Protocol evaluation}}
536 \label{sec:Simulation Results and Analysis}
537 \noindent \subsection{Simulation framework}
539 To assess the performance of our DiLCO protocol, we have used the discrete
540 event simulator OMNeT++ \cite{varga} to run different series of simulations.
541 Table~\ref{table3} gives the chosen parameters setting.
544 \caption{Relevant parameters for network initializing.}
547 % used for centering table
549 % centered columns (4 columns)
551 %inserts double horizontal lines
552 Parameter & Value \\ [0.5ex]
554 %Case & Strategy (with Two Leaders) & Strategy (with One Leader) & Simple Heuristic \\ [0.5ex]
558 % inserts single horizontal line
559 Sensing Field & $(50 \times 25)~m^2 $ \\
560 % inserting body of the table
562 Nodes Number & 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250~nodes \\
564 Initial Energy & 500-700~joules \\
566 Sensing Period & 60 Minutes \\
567 $E_{th}$ & 36 Joules\\
571 % [1ex] adds vertical space
577 % is used to refer this table in the text
580 Simulations with five different node densities going from 50 to 250~nodes were
581 performed considering each time 25~randomly generated networks, to obtain
582 experimental results which are relevant. The nodes are deployed on a field of
583 interest of $(50 \times 25)~m^2 $ in such a way that they cover the field with a
586 We chose as energy consumption model the one proposed proposed by~\cite{ChinhVu}
587 and based on ~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} with slight modifications. The energy
588 consumed by the communications is added and the part relative to a variable
589 sensing range is removed. We also assume that the nodes have the characteristics
590 of the Medusa II sensor node platform \cite{raghunathan2002energy}. A sensor
591 node typically consists of four units: a MicroController Unit, an Atmels AVR
592 ATmega103L in case of Medusa II, to perform the computations; a communication
593 (radio) unit able to send and receive messages; a sensing unit to collect data;
594 a power supply which provides the energy consumed by node. Except the battery,
595 all the other unit can be switched off to save energy according to the node
596 status. Table~\ref{table4} summarizes the energy consumed (in milliWatt per
597 second) by a node for each of its possible status.
600 \caption{Energy consumption model}
603 % used for centering table
605 \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|}
606 % centered columns (4 columns)
608 %inserts double horizontal lines
609 Sensor status & MCU & Radio & Sensing & Power (mW) \\ [0.5ex]
611 % inserts single horizontal line
612 Listening & ON & ON & ON & 20.05 \\
613 % inserting body of the table
615 Active & ON & OFF & ON & 9.72 \\
617 Sleep & OFF & OFF & OFF & 0.02 \\
619 Computation & ON & ON & ON & 26.83 \\
621 %\multicolumn{4}{|c|}{Energy needed to send/receive a 1-bit} & 0.2575\\
627 % is used to refer this table in the text
630 Less influent energy consumption sources like when turning on the radio,
631 starting the sensor node, changing the status of a node, etc., will be neglected
632 for the sake of simplicity. Each node saves energy by switching off its radio
633 once it has received its decision status from the corresponding leader (it can
634 be itself). As explained previously in subsection~\ref{main_idea}, two kinds of
635 packets for communication are considered in our protocol: INFO packet and
636 ActiveSleep packet. To compute the energy needed by a node to transmit or
637 receive such packets, we use the equation giving the energy spent to send a
638 1-bit-content message defined in~\cite{raghunathan2002energy} (we assume
639 symmetric communication costs), and we set their respective size to 112 and
640 24~bits. The energy required to send or receive a 1-bit-content message is thus
643 Each node has an initial energy level, in Joules, which is randomly drawn in
644 $[500-700]$. If its energy provision reaches a value below the threshold
645 $E_{th}=36$~Joules, the minimum energy needed for a node to stay active during
646 one period, it will no longer take part in the coverage task. This value
647 corresponds to the energy needed by the sensing phase, obtained by multiplying
648 the energy consumed in active state (9.72 mW) by the time in seconds for one
649 period (3,600 seconds), and adding the energy for the pre-sensing phases.
650 According to the interval of initial energy, a sensor may be active during at
653 In the simulations, we introduce the following performance metrics to evaluate
654 the efficiency of our approach:
656 %\begin{enumerate}[i)]
658 \item {{\bf Network Lifetime}:} we define the network lifetime as the time until
659 the coverage ratio drops below a predefined threshold. We denote by
660 $Lifetime_{95}$ (respectively $Lifetime_{50}$) the amount of time during which
661 the network can satisfy an area coverage greater than $95\%$ (respectively
662 $50\%$). We assume that the sensor network can fulfill its task until all its
663 nodes have been drained of their energy or it becomes disconnected. Network
664 connectivity is crucial because an active sensor node without connectivity
665 towards a base station cannot transmit any information regarding an observed
666 event in the area that it monitors.
668 \item {{\bf Coverage Ratio (CR)}:} it measures how well the WSN is able to
669 observe the area of interest. In our case, we discretized the sensor field
670 as a regular grid, which yields the following equation to compute the
674 \mbox{CR}(\%) = \frac{\mbox{$n$}}{\mbox{$N$}} \times 100.
676 where $n$ is the number of covered grid points by active sensors of every
677 subregions during the current sensing phase and $N$ is the total number of grid
678 points in the sensing field. In our simulations, we have a layout of $N = 51
679 \times 26 = 1326$ grid points.
681 \item {{\bf Energy Consumption}:} energy consumption (EC) can be seen as the
682 total amount of energy consumed by the sensors during $Lifetime_{95}$
683 or $Lifetime_{50}$, divided by the number of periods. Formally, the computation
684 of EC can be expressed as follows:
687 \mbox{EC} = \frac{\sum\limits_{m=1}^{M} \left( E^{\mbox{com}}_m+E^{\mbox{list}}_m+E^{\mbox{comp}}_m
688 + E^{a}_m+E^{s}_m \right)}{M},
691 where $M$ corresponds to the number of periods. The total amount of energy
692 consumed by the sensors (EC) comes through taking into consideration four main
693 energy factors. The first one, denoted $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{com}}_m$,
694 represents the energy consumption spent by all the nodes for wireless
695 communications during period $m$. $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{list}}_m$, the next
696 factor, corresponds to the energy consumed by the sensors in LISTENING status
697 before receiving the decision to go active or sleep in period $m$.
698 $E^{\scriptsize \mbox{comp}}_m$ refers to the energy needed by all the leader
699 nodes to solve the integer program during a period. Finally, $E^a_{m}$ and
700 $E^s_{m}$ indicate the energy consumed by the whole network in the sensing phase
701 (active and sleeping nodes).
706 %\subsection{Performance Analysis for different subregions}
707 \subsection{Performance analysis}
710 In this subsection, we first focus on the performance of our DiLCO protocol for
711 different numbers of subregions. We consider partitions of the WSN area into
712 $2$, $4$, $8$, $16$, and $32$ subregions. Thus the DiLCO protocol is declined in
713 five versions: DiLCO-2, DiLCO-4, DiLCO-8, DiLCO-16, and DiLCO-32. Simulations
714 without partitioning the area of interest, cases which correspond to a
715 centralized approach, are not presented because they require high execution
716 times to solve the integer program and therefore consume too much energy.
718 We compare our protocol to two other approaches. The first one, called DESK and
719 proposed by ~\cite{ChinhVu} is a fully distributed coverage algorithm. The
720 second one, called GAF ~\cite{xu2001geography}, consists in dividing the region
721 into fixed squares. During the decision phase, in each square, one sensor is
722 chosen to remain active during the sensing phase.
724 \subsubsection{Coverage ratio}
726 Figure~\ref{fig3} shows the average coverage ratio for 150 deployed nodes. It
727 can be seen that both DESK and GAF provide a coverage ratio which is slightly
728 better compared to DiLCO in the first thirty periods. This can be easily
729 explained by the number of active nodes: the optimization process of our
730 protocol activates less nodes than DESK or GAF, resulting in a slight decrease
731 of the coverage ratio. In case of DiLCO-2 (respectively DiLCO-4), the coverage
732 ratio exhibits a fast decrease with the number of periods and reaches zero value
733 in period~18 (respectively 46), whereas the other versions of DiLCO, DESK, and
734 GAF ensure a coverage ratio above 50\% for subsequent periods. We believe that
735 the results obtained with these two methods can be explained by a high
736 consumption of energy and we will check this assumption in the next subsection.
738 Concerning DiLCO-8, DiLCO-16, and DiLCO-32, these methods seem to be more
739 efficient than DESK and GAF, since they can provide the same level of coverage
740 (except in the first periods where DESK and GAF slightly outperform them) for a
741 greater number of periods. In fact, when our protocol is applied with a large
742 number of subregions (from 8 to 32~regions), it activates a restricted number of
743 nodes, and thus enables the extension of the network lifetime.
748 \includegraphics[scale=0.45] {CR.pdf}
749 \caption{Coverage ratio}
754 \subsubsection{Energy consumption}
756 Based on the results shown in Figure~\ref{fig3}, we focus on the DiLCO-16 and
757 DiLCO-32 versions of our protocol, and we compare their energy consumption with
758 the DESK and GAF approaches. For each sensor node we measure the energy consumed
759 according to its successive status, for different network densities. We denote
760 by $\mbox{\it Protocol}/50$ (respectively $\mbox{\it Protocol}/95$) the amount
761 of energy consumed while the area coverage is greater than $50\%$ (repectively
762 $95\%$), where {\it Protocol} is one of the four protocols we compare.
763 Figure~\ref{fig95} presents the energy consumptions observed for network sizes
764 going from 50 to 250~nodes. Let us notice that the same network sizes will be
765 used for the different performance metrics.
769 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{EC.pdf}
770 \caption{Energy consumption per period}
774 The results depict the good performance of the different versions of our
775 protocol. Indeed, the protocols DiLCO-16/50, DiLCO-32/50, DiLCO-16/95, and
776 DiLCO-32/95 consume less energy than their DESK and GAF counterparts for a
777 similar level of area coverage. This observation reflects the larger number of
778 nodes set active by DESK and GAF.
780 Now, if we consider a same protocol, we can notice that the average consumption
781 per period increases slightly for our protocol when increasing the level of
782 coverage and the number of node, whereas it increases more largely for DESK and
783 GAF. In case of DiLCO, it means that even if a larger network allows to improve
784 the number of periods with a minimum coverage level value, this improvement has
785 a higher energy cost per period due to communication overhead and a more
786 difficult optimization problem. However, in comparison with DESK and GAF, our
787 approach has a reasonable energy overcost.
789 \subsubsection{Execution time}
791 Another interesting point to investigate is the evolution of the execution time
792 with the size of the WSN and the number of subregions. Therefore, we report for
793 every version of our protocol the average execution times in seconds needed to
794 solve the optimization problem for different WSN sizes. The execution times are
795 obtained on a laptop DELL which has an Intel Core~i3~2370~M~(2.4~GHz) dual core
796 processor and a MIPS rating equal to 35330. The corresponding execution times on
797 a MEDUSA II sensor node are then extrapolated according to the MIPS rate of the
798 Atmels AVR ATmega103L microcontroller (6~MHz), which is equal to 6, by
799 multiplying the laptop times by $\left(\frac{35330}{2} \times
800 \frac{1}{6}\right)$. The expected times on a sensor node are reported on
805 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{T.pdf}
806 \caption{Execution time in seconds}
810 Figure~\ref{fig8} shows that DiLCO-32 has very low execution times in comparison
811 with other DiLCO versions, because the activity scheduling is tackled by a
812 larger number of leaders and each leader solves an integer problem with a
813 limited number of variables and constraints. Conversely, DiLCO-2 requires to
814 solve an optimization problem with half of the network nodes and thus presents a
815 high execution time. Nevertheless if we refer to Figure~\ref{fig3}, we observe
816 that DiLCO-32 is slightly less efficient than DilCO-16 to maintain as long as
817 possible high coverage. In fact an excessive subdivision of the area of interest
818 prevents it to ensure a good coverage especially on the borders of the
819 subregions. Thus, the optimal number of subregions can be seen as a trade-off
820 between execution time and coverage performance.
822 \subsubsection{Network lifetime}
824 In the next figure, the network lifetime is illustrated. Obviously, the lifetime
825 increases with the network size, whatever the considered protocol, since the
826 correlated node density also increases. A high network density means a high
827 node redundancy which allows to turn-off many nodes and thus to prolong the
832 \includegraphics[scale=0.45]{LT.pdf}
833 \caption{Network lifetime}
837 As highlighted by Figure~\ref{figLT95}, when the coverage level is relaxed
838 ($50\%$) the network lifetime also improves. This observation reflects the fact
839 that the higher the coverage performance, the more nodes must be active to
840 ensure the wider monitoring. For a similar level of coverage, DiLCO outperforms
841 DESK and GAF for the lifetime of the network. More specifically, if we focus on
842 the larger level of coverage ($95\%$) in the case of our protocol, the subdivision
843 in $16$~subregions seems to be the most appropriate.
846 \section{\uppercase{Conclusion and future work}}
847 \label{sec:Conclusion and Future Works}
849 A crucial problem in WSN is to schedule the sensing activities of the different
850 nodes in order to ensure both coverage of the area of interest and longer
851 network lifetime. The inherent limitations of sensor nodes, in energy provision,
852 communication and computing capacities, require protocols that optimize the use
853 of the available resources to fulfill the sensing task. To address this
854 problem, this paper proposes a two-step approach. Firstly, the field of sensing
855 is divided into smaller subregions using the concept of divide-and-conquer
856 method. Secondly, a distributed protocol called Distributed Lifetime Coverage
857 Optimization is applied in each subregion to optimize the coverage and lifetime
858 performances. In a subregion, our protocol consists in electing a leader node
859 which will then perform a sensor activity scheduling. The challenges include how
860 to select the most efficient leader in each subregion and the best
861 representative set of active nodes to ensure a high level of coverage. To assess
862 the performance of our approach, we compared it with two other approaches using
863 many performance metrics like coverage ratio or network lifetime. We have also
864 studied the impact of the number of subregions chosen to subdivide the area of
865 interest, considering different network sizes. The experiments show that
866 increasing the number of subregions improves the lifetime. The more subregions there are, the more robust the network is against random disconnection
867 resulting from dead nodes. However, for a given sensing field and network size
868 there is an optimal number of subregions. Therefore, in case of our simulation
869 context a subdivision in $16$~subregions seems to be the most relevant. The
870 optimal number of subregions will be investigated in the future.
872 \section*{\uppercase{Acknowledgements}}
874 \noindent As a Ph.D. student, Ali Kadhum IDREES would like to gratefully
875 acknowledge the University of Babylon - IRAQ for the financial support and
876 Campus France for the received support. This paper is also partially funded by
877 the Labex ACTION program (contract ANR-11-LABX-01-01).
880 \bibliographystyle{plain}
882 \bibliography{Example}}