Prolonging the MANET lifetime through wireless energy transfer using high powered and native powered mobile nodes

Nodes in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) have limited battery energy. Therefore they have limited network lifetime. Thus prolonging network lifetime is considered as an important design objective in energy-constrained networks such as MANETs. Recent work in the area of wireless charging allows nodes in a MANET to recharge wirelessly and readily available for operation forever. This paper deals with the approach of prolonging network lifetime by introducing Powered Mobile Nodes namely, High Powered Mobile Node (HPMN) and Native Powered Mobile Nodes (NPMN). To achieve that, the MANET is divided into non-overlapping disjoint zones by geographically partitioning the network. In each zone we deploy one NPMN, which wirelessly charges the mobile nodes in its deployed zone. The HPMN takes a proactive movement to meet up the NPMNs in each zone for wirelessly charging them. The simulation results show that the use of HPMN in conjunction with NPMNs for wireless charging can prolong MANET lifetime significantly.