Differential evolution based deployment of wireless sensor networks

Random deployment of sensor nodes most times generates an initial communication gap in the sensing field even in a highly dense network. These communication gaps still exist even when these sensor nodes are deployed in a structured manner. In either case, the resulting inter-node distances may cause lack of communication and subsequently degrades the network performance. Previous work showed that relay nodes have the capability of enhancing the communication among nodes in the network. In order to achieve better communication and extend the network lifetime, sensor nodes are deployed in a careful manner with the help of such relay nodes. This paper proposes an enhanced deployment algorithm based on Differential Evolution (DE). The algorithm aims at extending network lifetime by using a minimum number of relays. Results show that the proposed approach improves the network lifetime considerably compared to previous solution such as SP3D algorithm.