Energy-aware joint power, packet and topology optimization by simulated annealing for WSNs

Energy-aware connectivity in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can increase their network lifetime. This can be achieved by optimizing the power control, a particular communication mechanism and the topology control. To this end, in this paper´, an energy-aware joint power, packet and topology optimization for WSNs is provided. More specifically, we assume power control based on feedback information, packet transmission through automatic-repeat-request(ARQ) mechanism and topology control assuming specific coverage constraints. This particular joint optimization problem is considered as NP-complete and heuristic methods are usually applied in such complicated cases. In particular, we employ Simulated Annealing (SA) for a step-by-step evaluation of the average energy consumption of sensor nodes, which is considered the objective function of our optimization problem. In each step of the SA algorithm, the resultant topology is evaluated and at the convergence point the near optimal transmit power and packet as well as node placements are obtained jointly.