Markov Decision Processes with Applications in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of autonomous and resource-limited devices. The devices cooperate to monitor one or more physical phenomena within an area of interest. WSNs operate as stochastic systems because of randomness in the monitored environments. For long service time and low maintenance cost, WSNs require adaptive and robust methods to address data exchange, topology formulation, resource and power optimization, sensing coverage and object detection, and security challenges. In these problems, sensor nodes are to make optimized decisions from a set of accessible strategies to achieve design goals. This survey reviews numerous applications of the Markov decision process (MDP) framework, a powerful decision-making tool to develop adaptive algorithms and protocols for WSNs. Furthermore, various solution methods are discussed and compared to serve as a guide for using MDPs in WSNs

Coverage Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks: Review and Future Directions

The coverage problem in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can be generally defined as a measure of how effectively a network field is monitored by its sensor nodes. This problem has attracted a lot of interest over the years and as a result, many coverage protocols were proposed. In this survey, we first propose a taxonomy for classifying coverage protocols in WSNs. Then, we classify the coverage protocols into three categories (i.e. coverage aware deployment protocols, sleep scheduling protocols for flat networks, and cluster-based sleep scheduling protocols) based on the network stage where the coverage is optimized. For each category, relevant protocols are thoroughly reviewed and classified based on the adopted coverage techniques. Finally, we discuss open issues (and recommend future directions to resolve them) associated with the design of realistic coverage protocols. Issues such as realistic sensing models, realistic energy consumption models, realistic connectivity models and sensor localization are covered

An Energy-Efficient Distributed Algorithm for k-Coverage Problem in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have recently achieved a great deal of attention due to its numerous attractive applications in many different fields. Sensors and WSNs possesses a number of special characteristics that make them very promising in many applications, but also put on them lots of constraints that make issues in sensor network particularly difficult. These issues may include topology control, routing, coverage, security, and data management. In this thesis, we focus our attention on the coverage problem. Firstly, we define the Sensor Energy-efficient Scheduling for k-coverage (SESK) problem. We then solve it by proposing a novel, completely localized and distributed scheduling approach, naming Distributed Energy-efficient Scheduling for k-coverage (DESK) such that the energy consumption among all the sensors is balanced, and the network lifetime is maximized while still satisfying the k-coverage requirement. Finally, in related work section we conduct an extensive survey of the existing work in literature that focuses on with the coverage problem

Sensor network coverage and data aggregation problem: solutions toward the maximum lifetime

In the coverage problem, an optimal solution is proposed for the maximum lifetime sensor scheduling problem, which could find the upper bound of a sensor network\u27s lifetime. This research reveals the relationship between the degree of redundancy in sensor deployment and achievable extension on network lifetime, which can be a useful guide for practical sensor network design --Introduction, page 4

Distributed Algorithms for Maximizing the Lifetime of Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are emerging as a key enabling technology for applications domains such as military, homeland security, and environment. However, a major constraint of these sensors is their limited battery. In this dissertation we examine the problem of maximizing the duration of time for which the network meets its coverage objective. Since these networks are very dense, only a subset of sensors need to be in sense or on mode at any given time to meet the coverage objective, while others can go into a power conserving sleep mode. This active set of sensors is known as a cover. The lifetime of the network can be extended by shuffling the cover set over time. In this dissertation, we introduce the concept of a local lifetime dependency graph consisting of the cover sets as nodes with any two nodes connected if the corresponding covers intersect, to capture the interdependencies among the covers. We present heuristics based on some simple properties of this graph and show how they improve over existing algorithms. We also present heuristics based on other properties of this graph, new models for dealing with the solution space and a generalization of our approach to other graph problems

A near optimal algorithm for lifetime optimization in wireless sensor networks

International audienceA problem that has received a lot of interest in wireless sensor networks (WSN) is lifetime optimization. Indeed, in WSN each sensor node is battery powered and it is not convenient to recharge or replace the batteries in many cases, especially in remote and hostile environments. In this paper, we introduce an efficient energy-aware algorithm to enhance the lifetime of WSN by i) organizing/clustering the sensor nodes into disjoint cover sets where each cover set is capable of monitoring all the targets of the region of interest and ii) scheduling these cover sets successively/periodically. This study differs from previous works for the following reasons: i) it achieves near optimal solutions compared to the optimal ones obtained by the exact method and ii) unlike existing algorithms that construct gradually cover sets one after the other, our algorithm builds the different sets in parallel. Indeed, at each step of the clustering process, the algorithm attempts to add to each cover set a sensor capable of monitoring the most critical target (a critical target is defined to be the one covered by the smallest set of sensors). The choice of a sensor to be placed/clustered in each cover set is based on solving a linear assignment problem. The proposed algorithm provides a lower bound Kmin of the optimal number of disjoint cover sets Kopt . Intuitively, the upper bound Kmax of the optimal value is given by the size of the smallest set of sensors covering a target. We deduce Kopt by performing a binary search procedure. At each step of the binary search process, we check if there exists a partition of the sensors in K cover sets by solving an integer programming problem. Simulation results show the efficiency of our algorithm