Sensor placement for maximizing lifetime per unit cost in wireless sensor networks

Lifetime per unit cost, defined as the network lifetime divided by the number of sensors deployed in the network, can be used to measure the utilization efficiency of sensors in a wireless sensor network (WSN). Analyzing the lifetime per unit cost of a linear WSN, we find that deploying either an extremely large or an extremely small number of sensors is inefficient in terms of lifetime per unit cost. We thus seek answers to the following questions: how many sensors should be deployed and how to deploy them to maximize the lifetime per unit cost. Numerical and simulation results are provided to study the optimal sensor placement and the optimal number of deployed sensors