Data collection in WSNs with a mobile sink for a supervision application

A wireless sensor network is an ad hoc network with a great number of nodes which are microsensors able to collect and to transmit data in an autonomous way. The wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have known recently a much diversified use in various fields: environmental monitoring, health, protection of the borders, industry, military applications, natural safety, transport, disasters... etc. In the majority of the research studies undertaken on this type of networks, the sensor nodes are regarded as stationary. Recently, the new emerging applications (tracking of mobile objects, exploration of inaccessible spaces...) require the catch in consideration of the mobility of certain sensor nodes in the space of deployment. This mobility relates to either a sensor node, or an actuator in the case of the networks of sensors/actuators, or the point of collection called Sink. We were interested in the mobility of the sink in the wireless sensor networks for monitoring applications with an aim of data collection in an intelligent and reliable way, and especially of ensuring the safety and the network lifetime.