A New Method for Distributing Power Usage across a Sensor Network

We present a method for more uniformly distributing the energy burden across a wireless ground-based sensor network communicating with an overhead unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). A subset of sensor nodes, termed a transmit cluster, receives and aggregates data gathered by the entire network, and forms a distributed antenna array, concentrating the radiated transmission into a narrow beam aimed towards the UAV. Because these duties are power-intensive, the role of transmit cluster must be shifted to different nodes as time progresses. We present an algorithm to reassign the transmit cluster, specifying the time that should elapse between reassignments and the number of hops that should be placed between successive transmit clusters in order to achieve three competing goals: first, we wish to better and more broadly spread the energy load across the sensor network while, second, minimizing the energy expended in moving the transmit cluster, all the while, third, reducing to the extent practicable the time to bring the UAV and the sensor network´s beam into alignment. The algorithm thus extends the lifetime of the sensor network while meeting system-level performance objectives