Data harvesting with mobile elements in wireless sensor networks

In recent studies, using mobile elements (MEs) as mechanical carriers to relay data has been shown to be an effective way of prolonging sensor network life time and relaying information in partitioned networks. As the data generation rates of sensors may vary, some sensors need to be visited more frequently than others. In this paper, a partitioning-based algorithm is presented that schedules the movements of MEs in a sensor network such that there is no data loss due to buffer overflow. Simulation results show that the proposed Partitioning-Based Scheduling (PBS) algorithm performs well in terms of reducing the minimum required ME speed to prevent data loss, providing high predictability in inter-visit durations, and minimizing the data loss rate for the cases when the ME is constrained to move slower than the minimum required ME speed. 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.