Efficient Data Collection in UAV-Assisted Cluster-Based Wireless Sensor Networks for 3D Environment: Optimization Study

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been recently employed in combination with wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to collect data efficiently and improve surveillance effectiveness. This integration enhances the WSN infrastructure where UAVs are used as aerial base stations from which to access wireless sensors in hard-to-reach places within surveillance area. Consequently, the UAVs have become a promising solution to maintain reliability for the communication between wireless sensors and base station particularly in cases where infrastructure becomes unavailable such as hilly terrains and emergencies. However, UAVs encounter many challenges which mainly focus on their lifespan and efficient placement that improves the coverage and data collection. In this paper, a novel optimization study is presented to improve the lifespan of UAV-assisted cluster-based WSNs deployed in 3D environment. This optimization study is based on two algorithms: (1) Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) which is employed to address the clustering problem in the WSN and (2) Genetic Algorithm (GA) which is employed to locate an efficient UAV placement to maximize the lifetime. The UAV-WSN system is evaluated by considering two metrics: lifetime and throughput. The simulation results show that varying UAV altitude has significant impact on both lifetime and throughput especially in the presence of different terrain. With increasing altitude, lifetime and throughput decrease as this loss can be as high as 94%. However, the proposed optimization plays a major role in combating these losses by redirecting the UAV to efficient placement corresponding to the new altitude level to maintain maximum lifetime and throughput. Moreover, the system lifetime concerning efficient UAV placement outperforms the one concerning centered placement at lower altitude, while the difference between two cases becomes less at higher altitude. Thereby, these outcomes may provide interesting measures for designing such integrated systems to achieve efficient data collection.