Abstract
G. Mergen, Q. Zhao and L. Tong
"Sensor Networks with Mobile Access:
Energy and Capacity Considerations"
Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Communications.
Sensor network with mobile access (SENMA) is an architecture in which
randomly deployed low power sensors are orchestrated by mobile access
points. This paper considers SENMA from energy efficiency and
information-theoretic perspectives. By allowing sensors propagate
data directly to mobile access points over multiaccess channels, the
energy consumption of sensors depends on the channel propagation
characteristics but not on the size of the network. In a multihop
sensor network with fixed gateway nodes, in contrast, the energy
consumed by the sensors to deliver a randomly located packet to the
gateway node at the center is shown to scale with the size of the
network $N$ in the order of $O(\sqrt{N\log N})$. Optimization of
SENMA parameters such as altitude, trajectory and coverage of access
points is considered next using the sum-rate as the performance
metric. Optimal strategies for single and multiple access points are
determined. For multiple access points, the possibility of and the
gain due to cooperation (i.e., joint decoding of signals received at
different access points) are investigated.