Trail-Based Search for Efficient Event Report to Mobile Actors in Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks

Area of Science:

• Wireless Sensor Networks
• Network Protocols
• Distributed Systems

Background:

• Mobile actors in wireless sensor networks have unpredictable locations.
• Existing search strategies incur high energy consumption and delay due to actor mobility.
• Efficiently locating mobile actors is crucial for mission execution.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel trail-based search (TS) strategy for wireless sensor and actor networks.
• To leverage actor mobility for improved search efficiency and reduced resource consumption.
• To address the limitations of existing search methods in dynamic network environments.

Main Methods:

• Developed the trail-based search (TS) strategy, utilizing actor-generated footprints to form a trail.
• Derived conditions for guaranteeing trail connectivity.
• Proposed a redundancy reduction scheme (TS-R) to optimize transmission.
• Conducted theoretical and numerical analysis to validate the strategy.

Main Results:

• The TS strategy effectively utilizes actor mobility to guide search packets.
• TS significantly reduces energy consumption compared to Expanding Ring Search (ERS).
• TS demonstrably lowers search delay in wireless sensor networks.
• The TS-R scheme effectively minimizes redundant transmissions.

Conclusions:

• The proposed trail-based search (TS) strategy offers a superior solution for locating mobile actors in wireless sensor networks.
• TS provides a significant improvement in energy efficiency and reduced latency.
• The strategy is robust and adaptable to the dynamic nature of actor movements.