Safe base-station repositioning in wireless sensor networks

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), large populations of tiny sensor nodes probe the environment and report the collected data to a base-station(s) for processing. Due to the resource constraints, WSNs pose numerous and non-conventional design challenges compared to contemporary communication networks. One of the performance optimization techniques that have been recently proposed is to dynamically relocate the base-station closer to the sensors involved in heavy packet traffic in order to increase energy efficiency, packet delivery ratio and timeliness. In this paper, we argue that such relocation may jeopardize the base-station since it often moves the base-station too close to danger zones. We present STEER, an efficient safety-oriented relocation algorithm for base-stations that strives to protect the base-station while maintaining good network performance. The effectiveness of our algorithm is validated in a simulated environment