A New Nonuniform Random Deployment Method to Minimize Cost for Large-Scale Wireless Sensor Networks

Network deployment is one of the key research issues of Wireless Sensor Networks(WSNs), and it has an essential impact on the performance of the network. Due to the geographical environment limitation, random deployment has become a critical deployment method. There are many random deployment methods, and they focus on different network performance (network coverage, connectivity, energy efficiency, lifetime, and so on). This paper proposes a nonuniform random deployment method to minimize the network cost for homogeneous WSNs. Firstly, we define the problem to be solved and give an optimization model. A new cost concept is defined that combines several measurements, such as covered area, lifetime, and cost. Secondly, based on the theoretical analysis of energy consumption, node density, and network cost, a new deployment method and corresponding routing strategy are proposed. To ensure energy efficiency and minimize cost, a multi-sink and corona structure is adopted. Finally, simulation experiments verify the effectiveness of the method by comparing it with the other four random deployment methods. Compared with the other four methods at the two densities, the cost is reduced by at least 40% (density is 0.04) and 24.1% (density is 0.025), respectively.