The lifetime optimization of wireless multimedia sensor networks under uncertain energy consumption

Wireless multimedia sensor networks (WMSN) has a lot of potential applications due to its content-enriched sensing information and flexibility. Energy constraints, low capacity of wireless channel and uncertain factors make the design and optimization of WMSN challenging. In this paper, we consider the lifetime optimization of WMSN subject to energy consumption uncertainty. The uncertain energy consumption in each sensor nodes is modeled as a polyhedral set. The lifetime maximization problem is formulated as a robust optimization problem, the counterpart of which is showed to be a convex problem with linear constraints. We solve the robust counterpart problem in its dual domain with dual decomposition and subgradient method. A partially distributed algorithm is proposed based on the solution of the problem. The algorithm can be implemented in small scale WMSNs with sink node responsible for partially central calculation function.