A Cluster-Based Hierarchical Approach for Scheduling the Mobile Element in Wireless Sensor Networks

In Wireless Sensor Networks, recent studies reveal mobility of the sink nodes as a solution for collecting the data from the sensor nodes. The mobile element acts as a mechanical carrier for collecting the data from the sensor nodes. Each sensor node is assigned a buffer for accumulating the sensed data and data loss occurs if the buffer overflows. Therefore, scheduling the mobile element such without any buffer overflow is a major issue. The proposed algorithm incorporates the partitioning of the network into clusters based on the geographical regions. Within each cluster, a hierarchical tree structure is formed such that only the base-level nodes are visited by the mobile element. The collected data flows down the hierarchical tree to the base level nodes until all the collected data reaches the mobile node.