Joint optimization of power allocation and relay selection in cooperative wireless sensor networks

We study the problem of optimizing the symbol error probability (SEP) performance of cluster-based cooperative wireless sensor networks (WSNs). We propose that to achieve the minimum SEP at the destination, a joint optimization of power allocation and relay selection should be accomplished. To this aim, we reformulate the SEP performance of a simple cluster-based cooperative WSN in the general form and solve the joint optimization problem efficiently. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed joint optimization can efficiently improve the SEP performance of the network in comparison with the previous disjoint optimal relay selection schemes.