SIMPLE: Using Swarm Intelligence Methodology to Design Data Acquisition Protocol in Sensor Networks with Mobile Sinks
H. Yang, F. Ye, Biplab Sikdar · 2006
Abstract — This paper addresses the data acquisition problem in sensor networks using mobile sinks. Sensor nodes ’ low computational capabilities and limited energy motivate our design of a swarm intelligence based, energy aware protocol, SIMPLE, to route data to the mobile destination via the shortest paths. Using a swarm agent technique to integrate nodes ’ residual energy as a metric for the shortest path selection, SIMPLE maximizes the network’s lifetime by evenly balancing residual energy across the network and minimizing the protocol overhead. The protocol’s resilience against node failures is guaranteed by the multiple path technique. It scales well with both the network size and multiple sinks. Simulation results are presented to observe and verify SIMPLE’s performance and robustness. Compared with existing algorithms, SIMPLE is shown to have superior performance. A general tradeoff model is presented to evaluate the performance tradeoffs associated with different protocol parameters. Index Terms — Swarm intelligence, data acquisition, mobilesink, sensor network, energy awareness