Impact of Node Deployment and Routing for Protection of Critical Infrastructures

Recently, linear wireless sensor networks (LWSNs) have been eliciting increasing attention because of their suitability for applications such as the protection of critical infrastructures. Most of these applications require LWSN to remain operational for a longer period. However, the non-replenishable limited battery power of sensor nodes does not allow them to meet these expectations. Therefore, a shorter network lifetime is one of the most prominent barriers in large-scale deployment of LWSN. Unlike most existing studies, in this paper, we analyze the impact of node placement and clustering on LWSN network lifetime. First, we categorize and classify existing node placement and clustering schemes for LWSN and introduce various topologies for disparate applications. Then, we highlight the peculiarities of LWSN applications and discuss their unique characteristics. Several application domains of LWSN are described. We present three node placement strategies (i.e., linear sequential, linear parallel, and grid) and various deployment methods such as random, uniform, decreasing distance, and triangular. Extensive simulation experiments are conducted to analyze the performance of the three state-of-the-art routing protocols in the context of node deployment strategies and methods. The experimental results demonstrate that the node deployment strategies and methods significantly affect LWSN lifetime.