Effective Energy Restoration of Wireless Sensor Networks by a Mobile Robot

Abstract

As most existing sensors are powered by batteries, the coverage provided by a sensor network degrades over time and eventually disappears if energy is not restored. A popular approach to energy restoration is to use a robot acting as a mobile battery charger/changer. The robot decides where to move next according to a predefined on-line energy restoration strategy. The effectiveness of such a strategy depends on the number of nodes it is able to maintain operational at any given time, as well as on for how long a node whose battery is depleted remains nonoperational.