An ant-colony-system-based activity scheduling method for the lifetime maximization of heterogeneous wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Scheduling activities of network devices is an important and promising methodology for prolonging the lifetime of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The existing scheduling methods in the literature are mostly designed for homogeneous WSNs. Heterogeneous WSNs, despite their wide applications, have received few research attentions. This paper proposes an antcolony-system-based scheduling method (ACS-SM) for maximizing the lifetime of a typical type of heterogeneous WSNs. First, the lifetime maximization problem is formulated as finding the maximum number of disjoint sets of devices, with each set fulfilling sensing coverage and network connectivity simultaneously. Then ACS-SM adapts the incremental solution construction mechanism in ACS for building disjoint connected cover sets on the basis of a well-designed construction graph. Pheromone trails that record search experience and heuristic information that combines domain knowledge are utilized to guide the set building procedure. A local search process is also developed to further enhance the efficiency of the method. ACSSM is applied to fifteen WSN cases in three series. Experimental results show that the proposed method can find high-quality solutions at a fast speed for WSNs with different characteristics. Copyright 2010 ACM.