Transmission Scheduling for Sensor Network Lifetime Maximization: A Shortest Path Bandit Formulation

This paper addresses optimal sensor scheduling for maximizing network lifetime. We formulate this problem as a stochastic shortest-path multi-armed bandit problem. The optimal transmission scheduling policy is thus to choose the sensor with the largest Gittins index. Exploiting the underlying structure of the sensor scheduling problem, we derive a closed-form expression for the Gittins index. We show that choosing the sensor with the most residual energy is an optimal strategy when the channel fading is independently and identically distributed across sensors.