Distributed Multi-Actuator Control for Workload Balancing in Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks

This technical note presents strategies for systematic ways to control mobile actuators in distributed wireless sensor and actuator networks. The efficiency, responsiveness, and service lifetime of the mobile actuators depend on the allocation of the workload to each individual actuator. Starting from an initial deployment, the proposed distributed multi-actuator control algorithm computes the load in each partition and uses the load imbalance as a virtual force to dynamically move the actuators until a balanced distribution is achieved. The load in each partition for an individual actuator includes both the total travel cost to visit or contact all sensors in the partition and the cost of servicing them. Finding the minimum workload allocation to serve each partition is an NP-hard problem. Therefore, efficient heuristics are proposed to do the partition, plan the path of each actuator and calculate its workload. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategies.