Sánchez-Álvarez David, Linaje Marino, Rodríguez-Pérez Francisco-Javier
School of Technology, University of Extremadura, 10003 Caceres, Spain.
Sensors (Basel). 2018 Mar 23;18(4):954. doi: 10.3390/s18040954.
In this paper, we present a work based on the computational load distribution among the homogeneous nodes and the Hub/Sink of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). The main contribution of the paper is an early decision support framework helping WSN designers to take decisions about computational load distribution for those WSNs where power consumption is a key issue (when we refer to "framework" in this work, we are considering it as a support tool to make decisions where the executive judgment can be included along with the set of mathematical tools of the WSN designer; this work shows the need to include the load distribution as an integral component of the WSN system for making early decisions regarding energy consumption). The framework takes advantage of the idea that balancing sensors nodes and Hub/Sink computational load can lead to improved energy consumption for the whole or at least the battery-powered nodes of the WSN. The approach is not trivial and it takes into account related issues such as the required data distribution, nodes, and Hub/Sink connectivity and availability due to their connectivity features and duty-cycle. For a practical demonstration, the proposed framework is applied to an agriculture case study, a sector very relevant in our region. In this kind of rural context, distances, low costs due to vegetable selling prices and the lack of continuous power supplies may lead to viable or inviable sensing solutions for the farmers. The proposed framework systematize and facilitates WSN designers the required complex calculations taking into account the most relevant variables regarding power consumption, avoiding full/partial/prototype implementations, and measurements of different computational load distribution potential solutions for a specific WSN.
在本文中，我们展示了一项基于无线传感器网络（WSN）中同类节点与集线器/汇聚节点之间计算负载分布的工作。本文的主要贡献是一个早期决策支持框架，可帮助WSN设计者针对功耗是关键问题的那些WSN做出关于计算负载分布的决策（在本工作中当我们提及“框架”时，我们将其视为一种决策支持工具，其中可以将执行判断与WSN设计者的一组数学工具相结合；这项工作表明需要将负载分布作为WSN系统的一个组成部分，以便就能源消耗做出早期决策）。该框架利用了这样一种理念，即平衡传感器节点与集线器/汇聚节点的计算负载可提高整个WSN或至少其电池供电节点的能源消耗。该方法并非易事，它考虑了诸如所需的数据分布、节点以及集线器/汇聚节点的连接性和可用性等相关问题，因为它们具有连接特性和占空比。为了进行实际演示，将所提出的框架应用于一个农业案例研究，这是我们所在地区一个非常重要的领域。在这种农村环境中，距离、蔬菜销售价格导致的低成本以及缺乏持续供电可能会导致对农民来说可行或不可行的传感解决方案。所提出的框架系统化并简化了WSN设计者所需的复杂计算，考虑了与功耗最相关的变量，避免了针对特定WSN的不同计算负载分布潜在解决方案的完整/部分/原型实现及测量。
