Hopping-Aware Cluster Header Capability for Sensor Relocation in Mobile IoT Networks

Mobile sensor nodes such as hopping sensors are of critical importance in data collection. However, the occurrence of sensing holes is unavoidable due to the energy limitation of the nodes. Thus, it is evident that the relocation of mobile sensors is the most desirable method to recover the sensing holes. The previous research conducted by the authors so far demonstrated the most realistic hopping sensor relocation scheme, which is suitable for the distributed environment. In previous studies, the cluster header plays an essential role in detecting the sensing hole and requesting the neighboring cluster to recover the sensing hole that occurred in the sensor node. However, the limitations of the cluster header in the previously proposed relocation protocol are not fully considered. Because the cluster header jumps more frequently than non-header nodes, its energy con-sumption is relatively high compared to other nodes. Therefore, it is most likely to lead to header node failure and can lead to data loss on the network. In this paper, the jumping ability and energy consumption of the cluster header are seriously considered. Additional ability to replace cluster headers in case of failure is also implemented. Simulation results show that the data collection time can be further increased, which demonstrates the validity of the proposed algorithms.