A new partitioning-based data gathering algorithm for path-constrained mobile elements in Wireless Sensor Networks

Using multiple mobile sinks for data gathering, such as Area Splitting Algorithm (ASA), has improved the performance of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) in terms of network latency and power consumption. However, for time and energy constrained mobile sinks in large scale WSNs, a large number of mobile sinks is required. Furthermore, a load balance method on such mobile elements is necessary in order to prolong the network lifetime. This paper represents a novel data gathering technique called Network Partitioning Algorithm (NPA). The NPA divides the sensor nodes into two partitions based on a centroid of a set of nodes locations. This is repeated recursively on each partition until either the path constraint of mobile elements is satisfied or the prohibited number of mobile element is reached. The simulation results of this paper demonstrated that our algorithm outperforms ASA concerning the minimum number of mobile elements and data gathering latency.