ICELUS: investigating strategy switching for throughput maximization to a mobile sink

Wireless sensor networks offer a pragmatic solution for monitoring in a variety of scenarios. For efficient and practical data gathering, especially in large-scale systems deployed in inaccessible areas, unmanned vehicles are becoming a compelling solution. The added infrastructure flexibility comes at the cost of limited contact time between the mobile entity and the stationary devices. The channel fading caused by mobility further decreases the data yield.We address this challenge by analysing the relevant classes of data transfer schemes and identifying adaptation conditions that enable the selection of the best fitting strategy. The result of this analysis, ICELUS, provides an integrated protocol that exploits the available communication resources.