Charging Scheduling Scheme for Maximizing Charging Efficiency to Extend Network Lifetime in WRSNs

Wireless Rechargeable Sensor Network (WRSN) is an emerging technology that has risen intending to enhance the network lifetime of conventional Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). In this paper, we have come up with a detailed overview of the charging cycles and scheduling schemes in WRSNs where sensor nodes take advantage of wireless power transfer techniques and serve the network for a longer period. Generally, the researchers do accept that using the full charging approach is not ideal due to the limited power of Mobile Charging Vehicles (MCVs) but they neglect the fact that solely using a partial charging scheme is also not the best solution as it increases travel time. After a critical overview of each aspect, we proposed a charging scheduling algorithm using both full and partial charging schemes. First, our scheduling scheme is a distributed architecture where each MCV serves its assigned region. Unlike other schemes, we used a spare MCV instead of deploying depots that can increase the cost of the network. Similarly, we also introduced volunteer charging sessions to lower the back and forth travelling of MCV s. The simulation results showed that our proposed charging scheduling scheme offers promising performance and outperforms in terms of charging efficiency, response time, queue length, and other performance evaluation metrics.