Analysis and design of message ferry routes in sensor networks using polling models

We consider a Ferry based Wireless Local Area Network (FWLAN), in which information is forwarded from a base station to sensors, or gathered from sensors to a base station using a moving Ferry. The sensors are scattered in a large area and do not have direct radio connectivity with the base station. The ferry thus serves as a relay that enables communication between the sensors and the base station. Our goal in this paper is to design optimal routes of the Ferry moving along which it distributes/collects the messages. Our analysis and optimization results build heavily on the theory of polling systems which we extend here in order to handle the case of continuous location of the demand. We derive optimal trajectories for various scenarios: uplink, downlink and their combination. We extend some of these results to the case of several base stations and several ferries.