Energy efficient schemes for wireless sensor networks with multiple mobile base stations

One of the main design issues for a sensor network is conservation of the energy available at each sensor node. We propose to deploy multiple, mobile base stations to prolong the lifetime of the sensor network. We split the lifetime of the sensor network into equal periods of time known as rounds. Base stations are relocated at the start of a round. Our method uses an integer linear program to determine new locations for the base stations and a flow-based routing protocol to ensure energy efficient routing during each round. We propose four metrics and evaluate our solution using these metrics. Based on the simulation results we show that employing multiple, mobile base stations in accordance with the solution given by our schemes would significantly increase the lifetime of the sensor network.