Optimizing Charging Efficiency and Maintaining Sensor Network Perpetually in Mobile Directional Charging
Xianghua Xu 
1
School of Computer Science and Technology, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, China
2
School of Science, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sensors 2019, 19(12), 2657; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19122657
Received: 25 April 2019 / Revised: 7 June 2019 / Accepted: 8 June 2019 / Published: 12 June 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Green, Energy-Efficient and Sustainable Networks)
Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) is a promising technology to replenish energy of sensors in Rechargeable Wireless Sensor Networks (RWSN). In this paper, we investigate the mobile directional charging optimization problem in RWSN. Our problem is how to plan the moving path and charging direction of the Directional Charging Vehicle (DCV) in the 2D plane to replenish energy for RWSN. The objective is to optimize energy charging efficiency of the DCV while maintaining the sensor network working continuously. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to study the mobile directional charging problem in RWSN. We prove that the problem is NP-hard. Firstly, the coverage utility of the DCV’s directional charging is proposed. Then we design an approximation algorithm to determine the docking spots and their charging orientations while minimizing the number of the DCV’s docking spots and maximizing the charging coverage utility. Finally, we propose a moving path planning algorithm for the DCV’s mobile charging to optimize the DCV’s energy charging efficiency while ensuring the networks working continuously. We theoretically analyze the DCV’s charging service capability, and perform the comprehensive simulation experiments. The experiment results show the energy efficiency of the DCV is higher than the omnidirectional charging model in the sparse networks.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Xu, X.; Chen, L.; Cheng, Z. Optimizing Charging Efficiency and Maintaining Sensor Network Perpetually in Mobile Directional Charging. Sensors 2019, 19, 2657.
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