WSN17-4: Controlled Node Mobility: A Mechanism for Energy Load Distribution in Sensor Networks

This paper presents a mechanism for extending network life by introducing energy-aware mobility in wireless sensor networks. The concept of controlled mobility for energy saving has been motivated by a natural grouping behavior that is observed in Emperor penguins in the Antarctic region. As a survival strategy during the winters, large groups of Emperor penguins form a closely huddled group to improve their collective heat insulation. Individual penguins within a group exhibit a local mobility pattern that ensures that each individual spends equal amount of time at the periphery of the group, where the heat loss is the maximum. In this paper, we first draw a parallel between the heat loss of a penguin at the group periphery, and the routing energy burden of a sensor node near base stations. Then we develop a distributed and fully localized mobility control algorithm for collective extension of the network life. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed controlled mobility can significantly extend a sensor network´s operating life even in situations where the energy cost of physical node movement is modeled as high as up to four orders of magnitude larger than the energy cost for packet communication.