An Energy Efficient Routing Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks Using Mobile Sensors

The increasing usage of wireless sensor networks in human life is an indication of the high importance of this technology. Wireless sensor networks have a vast majority of applications in monitoring and care which are known as target tracking. In this application, the moving targets are monitored and tracked in the environment. One of the most important challenges in this area is the limited energy of the sensors. In this paper, we proposed a new algorithm to reduce energy consumption by increasing the load balancing in the network. The proposed algorithm consists of four phases. In the first phase, which is the hole prevention phase, in each cluster, it is checked by the cluster heads that if the energy level in an area of the cluster is less than the threshold, a mobile node is sent to that area. The second phase is the update phase. In this phase, the parameters required to detect a hole are updated. In the third phase, the hole in the cluster is detected, and in the fourth phase, the hole is covered by static or moving nodes. A comparison of simulation results with the well-known and successful routing method in wireless sensor networks show that the proposed method is suitable and working properly.