Data Gathering and Communication for Wireless Sensor Networks - a Centralized Approach

This paper introduces a centralized approach to data gathering and communication for wireless sensor networks. Inspired by the social behaviors of natural ants, we clearly partition the task for the base station and sensor nodes in a wireless sensor network according to their different functions and capabilities. An ant colony optimization method is employed at the base station to form a near-optimal chain for sensor nodes to transmit collected data. Sensor nodes in the network then form a bi-direction chain structure, which is self-adaptive to any minor changes of the network topology. The simulation results show that the developed algorithm, which we call AntChain algorithm, performs much better than many other protocols in terms of energy efficiency, data integrity and life time when the base station is near where the sensor nodes are deployed.