Minimizing Data Collection Latency in Wireless Sensor Networks Having Mobile Elements

Exploring the capability of mobile elements to perform the data collection task in wireless sensor networks and thus reduce and balance the energy consumption at individual sensor nodes. The data collection latency gets affected due to the limited travel speed of mobile elements. Most of the approaches that strive to reduce the data collection latency focus on the scheduling of mobile elements which analyzes how the mobile elements travel through the sensing field and when they collect the data from the sensors. At first, this problem is articulated as a travelling salesman problem with neighbourhoods (TSPN) which is followed by a progressive optimization approach termed Combine-Skip-Substitute (CSS) scheme and multirate CSS scheme. Additionally, the data collection process is enhanced by introducing a queuing system along with the concepts of nearest-job-next and proximity job scheduling. At the end, the performance of data collection is evaluated through both theoretical analysis and extensive simulation.