An efficient top-k query processing framework in mobile sensor networks

Mobile sensor networks consist of a number of sensor nodes which are capable of sensing, processing, communicating and moving. These mobile sensor nodes move around and explore their surrounding areas. Top-k queries are useful in many mobile sensor network applications. However, the mobility of sensor nodes incurs new challenges in addition to the problems of static sensor networks (i.e., resource constraints). Sincemobile sensor nodes tend tomove continuously, the network condition changes frequently and they consume considerably more energy than static sensor nodes. In this paper, we propose an efficient top-k query processing framework in a mobile sensor network environment called mSensor. To construct an efficient routing topology, we devise a mobility-aware routing method. Using the semantics of the top-k query, we develop a filter-based data collection method which can save the energy consumption and providemore accurate query results.We also devise a data compressionmethod for disconnected sensor nodes to deal with the problem of limitedmemory space of sensor nodes. The performance of our proposed approach is extensively evaluated using synthetic data sets and real data sets. The results show the effectiveness of our approach. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.