Trajectory Optimization of Mobile Element for Sparse Wireless Sensor Networks

Mobile element has been proposed to assist data collection or data relay in wireless sensor networks, since it is able to either significantly save energy consumption or reach disconnected nodes due to the limited radio range. Trajectory of the mobile elements play an important role in avoiding buffer overflow of sensor nodes. In this paper, we propose optimization problems for mobile elements in terms of reducing traverse time of the mobile element. The problem is formulated as searching for Euler cycle in the graph obtained from the restricted routes of the mobile element. Itpsilas shown that solution to the resulting Chinese Postman Problem can provide optimal trajectory for the mobile element.