Network Planning for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks in Environmental Survivability

To deal with the problem of hostile environments, we proposed to construct heterogeneous sensor networks composed of both regular nodes and robust nodes, where robust nodes are better equipped for hostile environments and hence are more expensive than regular nodes. We study the problem of network design in heterogeneous wireless sensor networks that involves optimization of network costs associated with different classes of nodes versus maximizing coverage and network lifetime. We consider the design of heterogeneous networks with the objectives of minimizing costs and maximizing network lifetime. The association we present in heterogeneous sensor network design between optimizing the number of nodes in each class with cost constraints and network lifetime for corresponding network composition maybe of independent interest in the design of networks in general.