A Mobile Charging Algorithm Based on Multicharger Cooperation in Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of everything. In IoT, the charging problem of devices is an issue that needs urgent attention. Most previous studies about wireless charging algorithms are based on the ideal conditions, which may be not suitable for the actual scene. Therefore, focusing on that nodes are evenly distributed, which is a type of ideal conditions, this article proposes a mobile charging algorithm based on multicharger cooperation (MCCA) for IoT with the random deployment of nodes. The MCCA, which is based on a new uneven cluster method, mainly includes three parts. First, based on the relationship between the number of charging requests and the number of chargers, the base station chooses an appropriate charging request threshold and the number of chargers. Then, multiple chargers perform the collaborative charging scheduling based on the energy requirement of each cluster and the distance between clusters. Finally, the base station adjusts the charging sequence of each charger if there exists a conflict. In the end, the MCCA is verified by MATLAB and compared with various algorithms. The simulation results show that the MCCA can effectively balance the energy consumption, reduce the number of nonfunctional nodes, improve the charging efficiency, and extend the network lifetime.