A Lifetime-Enhancing Method for Directional Sensor Networks with a New Hybrid Energy-Consumption Pattern in Q-coverage Scenarios

An important issue in directional sensor networks (DSNs) is how to prolong the network lifetime in Q-coverage scenarios where each target point may have different coverage requirements. When the Q-coverage requirement is met, it is an effective way to maximize the network lifetime by controlling energy consumptions. Unlike the existing results where only the sensing energy consumption is considered, this paper proposes a new hybrid energy consumption pattern, which reflects the reality of energy consumptions more closely. In such a pattern, both sensing and communication energy consumptions are considered. By combining scheduling and clustering technologies to control these two kinds of energy consumptions in each round, a new lifetime-enhancing method (NLEM) is devised to prolong the network lifetime. First, a sensing direction scheduling algorithm for Q-coverage is proposed to make different sensing direction sets meet the coverage requirement of each target point. Then, a new cluster head selection algorithm and an inter-cluster communication algorithm are developed to select an optimal cluster head set and achieve multi-hop communication, respectively. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the NLEM in prolonging the network lifetime for DSNs in Q-coverage scenarios.