J-RoC: A Joint Routing and Charging scheme to prolong sensor network lifetime

The emerging wireless charging technology creates a controllable and perpetual energy source to provide wireless power over distance. Schemes have been proposed to make use of wireless charging to prolong the sensor network lifetime. Unfortunately, existing schemes only passively replenish sensors that are deficient in energy supply, and cannot fully leverage the strengths of this technology. To address the limitation, we propose J-RoC — a practical and efficient Joint Routing and Charging scheme. Through proactively guiding the routing activities in the network and delivering energy to where it is needed, J-RoC not only replenishes energy into the network but also effectively improves the network energy utilization, thus prolonging the network lifetime. To evaluate the performance of the J-RoC scheme, we conduct experiments in a small-scale testbed and simulations in large-scale networks. Evaluation results demonstrate that J-RoC significantly elongates the network lifetime compared to existing wireless charging based schemes.