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

A Theoretical Review of Topological Organization for Wireless Sensor Network

The recent decades have seen the growth in the fields of wireless communication technologies, which has made it possible to produce components with a rational cost of a few cubic millimeters of volume, called sensors. The collaboration of many of these wireless sensors with a basic base station gives birth to a network of wireless sensors. The latter faces numerous problems related to application requirements and the inadequate abilities of sensor nodes, particularly in terms of energy. In order to integrate the different models describing the characteristics of the nodes of a WSN, this paper presents the topological organization strategies to structure its communication. For large networks, partitioning into sub-networks (clusters) is a technique used to reduce consumption, improve network stability and facilitate scalability

Survey on Various Aspects of Clustering in Wireless Sensor Networks Employing Classical, Optimization, and Machine Learning Techniques

A wide range of academic scholars, engineers, scientific and technology communities are interested in energy utilization of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Their extensive research is going on in areas like scalability, coverage, energy efficiency, data communication, connection, load balancing, security, reliability and network lifespan. Individual researchers are searching for affordable methods to enhance the solutions to existing problems that show unique techniques, protocols, concepts, and algorithms in the wanted domain. Review studies typically offer complete, simple access or a solution to these problems. Taking into account this motivating factor and the effect of clustering on the decline of energy, this article focuses on clustering techniques using various wireless sensor networks aspects. The important contribution of this paper is to give a succinct overview of clustering

Dynamic distributed clustering in wireless sensor networks via Voronoi tessellation control

This paper presents two dynamic and distributed clustering algorithms for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Clustering approaches are used in WSNs to improve the network lifetime and scalability by balancing the workload among the clusters. Each cluster is managed by a cluster head (CH) node. The first algorithm requires the CH nodes to be mobile: by dynamically varying the CH node positions, the algorithm is proved to converge to a specific partition of the mission area, the generalised Voronoi tessellation, in which the loads of the CH nodes are balanced. Conversely, if the CH nodes are fixed, a weighted Voronoi clustering approach is proposed with the same load-balancing objective: a reinforcement learning approach is used to dynamically vary the mission space partition by controlling the weights of the Voronoi regions. Numerical simulations are provided to validate the approaches

Metaheuristics Techniques for Cluster Head Selection in WSN: A Survey

In recent years, Wireless sensor communication is growing expeditiously on the capability to gather information, communicate and transmit data effectively. Clustering is the main objective of improving the network lifespan in Wireless sensor network. It includes selecting the cluster head for each cluster in addition to grouping the nodes into clusters. The cluster head gathers data from the normal nodes in the cluster, and the gathered information is then transmitted to the base station. However, there are many reasons in effect opposing unsteady cluster head selection and dead nodes. The technique for selecting a cluster head takes into factors to consider including residual energy, neighbors’ nodes, and the distance between the base station to the regular nodes. In this study, we thoroughly investigated by number of methods of selecting a cluster head and constructing a cluster. Additionally, a quick performance assessment of the techniques' performance is given together with the methods' criteria, advantages, and future directions