Optimizing sensor movement planning for energy efficiency

Conserving the energy for motion is an important yet not-well-addressed problem in mobile sensor networks. In this paper, we study the problem of optimizing sensor movement for energy efficiency. We adopt a complete energy model to characterize the entire energy consumption in movement. Based on the model, we propose an optimal velocity schedule for minimizing energy consumption when the road condition is uniform; and a near optimal velocity schedule for the variable road condition by using continuous-state dynamic programming. Considering the variety in motion hardware, we also design one velocity schedule for simple microcontrollers, and one velocity schedule for relatively complex microcontrollers, respectively. Simulation results show that our velocity planning may have significant impact on energy conservation.