Optimization of Actors Placement within Wireless Sensor-Actor Networks

Wireless sensor-actor networks (WSANs) refer to a group of sensors and actors linked by wireless medium to perform distributed sensing and acting tasks. The main communication paradigm in WSANs is based on the sensor-actor coordination. Appropriate actions, which are corresponding to the sensed phenomenon, can´t be performed unless the event´s information is transmitted from the sensors to actors. One of the main requirements of sensor-actor communication in WSANs is the real-time requirement. Despite the importance of real-time communications in WSANs, to date no significant solution exists for this problem. This paper examines the placement of actors with respect to a real-time communication constraint in the WSANs. We have utilized the genetic algorithm (GA) to search the space with an objective function consisting of a main term (the communication delay) and two competitive terms (cost and accuracy). Our simulation results show that our proposed methodology provides a cost effective and accurate solution for the placement of actors within WSAN when the sensors are densely deployed.