Non-Uniform Deployment of LWSN for Automated Railway Track Fastener Maintenance Robot and GA-LEACH Optimization

WSNs are an important component of the Internet of Things (IoT), and the research on their routing protocols has always been a hot topic in academia. However, in ARTFMRs' collaborative operation along railway lines, there are common problems such as energy holes, high latency, and uneven energy consumption in LWSNs. To address these issues, this paper proposes a genetic algorithm-optimized energy-aware routing protocol (GAECRPQ). Firstly, a non-uniform deployment strategy of three-line isosceles triangles is constructed to enhance coverage and balance node distribution. Secondly, an energy-distance adaptive weighting mechanism based on a genetic algorithm is introduced for cluster head (CH) selection to reduce energy consumption in hotspots and extend the network lifetime. Finally, a task-aware TDMA dynamic time slot allocation method is proposed, which incorporates the real-time task status of ARTFMRs into communication scheduling to achieve priority transmission under latency constraints. The simulation results show, that compared with six unequal clustering protocols-EADUC, EAUCA, EBUC, EEUC, LEACH, and LEACH-C-the three-line isosceles triangle deployment has a wider coverage area, and the GAECRPQ protocol increases the network lifetime by 7.4%, the lifetime by 40%, and reduces the average latency by 55.77%, 53.07%, 47.61%, 39.87%, 52.08%, and 50.48%, respectively. This verifies that GAECRPQ has good performance in terms of network lifetime and energy utilization efficiency, providing a practical solution for the collaborative operation of ARTFMRs in railway maintenance scenarios.