IET Communications

Research Article

WDAT-OMS: A two-level scheme for efficient ISSN 1751-8628

Received on 21st April 2019
Revised 16th February 2020
data gathering in mobile-sink wireless sensor Accepted on 30th March 2020
E-First on 3rd June 2020
networks using compressive sensing theory doi: 10.1049/iet-com.2019.0433
www.ietdl.org

Shima Pakdaman Tirani1, Avid Avokh1 , Sahebeh Azar1

1Department of Electrical Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran
E-mail: aavokh@pel.iaun.ac.ir

Abstract: This study addresses the problems of energy and delay in wireless sensor networks equipped with mobile sinks. The
authors jointly consider the compressive sensing (CS) theory, cluster-based routing, and sink mobility to propose a data
collection method named ‘weighted data aggregation trees with optimal mobile sink(s) (WDAT-OMS)’. The proposed scheme
relies on a two-level architecture in which sensors are clustered at the first level. WDAT-OMS uses the CS theory along with
load-balanced data aggregation trees to route packets from sensors to the corresponding cluster heads (CHs). In this regard,
they present an efficient metric named ‘energy-and distance-aware CH selection’ to fairly distribute the energy consumption
among different sensors. At the second level, one or more sinks traverse the network to collect the aggregated data of CHs. As
an advantage, WDAT-OMS not only balances the energy consumption among different sensors but also increases the network
scalability. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm reduces energy consumption in comparison with
‘centralised clustering algorithm’, ‘energy-aware CS-based data aggregation’, and ‘energy-balanced high-level data aggregation
tree ‘by 66%, 62%, and 63% for an average number of clusters, respectively. It also decreases the sink delay in comparison with
the ‘single-hop data-gathering problem’ by 10%.

 Nomenclature concentration in the air [1, 2]. Energy consumption is one of the
main challenges in WSNs, which affects the network's lifetime.
B number of polling points Owing to the redundancy in WSNs, data of different sensors should
b a constant parameter be compressed and aggregated [1, 3]. In this regard, the
C number of clusters compressive sensing (CS) theory is an efficient solution used to
CH set of cluster heads (CHs) reconstruct the sparse signals at a rate less than the Nyquist rate
CM( j) members of jth cluster [4]. It combines the sampling and compression processes in one
d(i, j) Euclidean distance between sensors i and j step to minimise the number of samples of signals. This
E0 initial energy of sensors significantly reduces the amount of data to send, and subsequently,
ERx‐elec electrical energy required to run the circuitry in decreases energy consumption.
receiver On the other hand, traffic distribution in WSNs is naturally
ETx‐elec electrical energy required to run the circuitry in unbalanced. The sensors near the sink act as relay nodes and
transmitter receive/transmit more data than the other sensors. As a result, these
Er(i) residual energy of sensor i sensors quickly lose their energy. This is identified as ‘energy hole
ERx(L) energy consumption for receiving an L-bit packet problem’, which reduces the performance of the network.
ETx(L, d) energy consumption for transmitting an L-bit packet Therefore, an efficient routing protocol should be considered to
over distance d improve the load-balancing in the network. In this regard, cluster-
L packet length based routing protocols divide the network into several clusters to
M number of compressive sensing measurements locally balance the traffics among different sensors [5]. Over the
N number of sensors in the network last decade, several methods have been proposed for cluster head
NB(CH j) set of neighbour polling points of the jth CH (CH) selection, which generally use the residual energy and
NP(i) nearest neighbour polling point located at the distance factors [6–10]. However, unlike the traditional methods,
transmission range of sensor i we propose a new CH selection strategy, which not only uses both
P set of polling points distance and residual energy metrics but also considers the sink
Pr(i, r) punishment factor of sensor i at round r mobility and a punishment factor to more efficiently control the
R transmission range of sensors energy consumption in the network.
RSP reduced set of polling points In traditional WSNs, a multi-hop routing is used to deliver the
S number of mobile sinks data of sensors to the sink node. This increases the number of
V speed of mobile sinks transmissions and consequently, intensifies the energy consumption
ρ compressive ratio in the network. On the other hand, two-hop routing protocols, e.g.
ϵamp energy consumption of the transmission amplifier low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH), have also been
proven to be inefficient in comparison with the modern schemes. In
1 Introduction recent years, a number of research studies have been conducted to
more efficiently collect data in WSNs, including the use of
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of small sensors with multiple constant sinks and mobile sinks [11, 12]. In particular, the
sensing, limited computing, and wireless communication abilities. use of a mobile sink for data collection introduces a trade-off
These nodes sense the environment and send the collected data to between energy consumption and delay. Although the mobile sink
the sink. WSNs have many applications in environmental is not suitable for some real-time applications in terms of delay, it
monitoring including the information collection of soil humidity, is an efficient technique to reduce the energy consumption in non-
monitoring the coastline changes, and checking the gas real time applications, which generally collect data of an

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© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
environment for a long time. A mobile sink can efficiently traverse
the network and stop at the pre-determined polling points to
receive the buffered sensed data through a single-hop transmission.
In this way, using a shorter path for the sink tour reduces delay in
the network.
In the last decade, several research studies have been presented
to increase the lifetime in WSNs [10, 13–19]. However, there are
still some research gaps that need to be addressed. The ability to
make appropriate use of the CS theory, mobile sink, and load-
balanced cluster-based routing can improve the performance of
WSNs. One drawback of the previous works is that the literature
either address these issues separately or study two cases together.
However, keeping them all together can significantly increase the
network lifetime. Thus, an efficient algorithm is required to jointly
address the above-mentioned problems. Taking the described
challenges into account, this study deals with two basic problems
in WSNs, i.e. the energy consumption of sensors and delay of sink
tour. By jointly employing the CS theory, cluster-based routing,
and mobile sink(s), we propose an efficient algorithm, called
‘weighted data aggregation trees with optimal mobile sink(s)
(WDAT-OMS)’, which uses a two-level hybrid architecture. At the
first level, the network is divided into several clusters. An efficient
metric, namely ‘energy-and distance-aware CH selection (EDCS)’,
is proposed to fairly distribute the energy consumption among
different sensors. In each cluster, the data of sensors is transmitted
to the corresponding CH using the CS theory and weighted data
aggregation tree. At the second level, one or more mobile sinks
optimally traverse the network to collect the aggregated data of
CHs.
The main related works are [13–16]. Pakdaman Tirani and
Avokh [13] consider a simple mobility pattern for the sink node
while Xie and Jia [14] adopt a stationary sink. In [15], considering
a constant sink and clustering the network, an energy-aware
emergency transmission scheme is proposed. In the current study,
unlike [13–15], we present a hybrid architecture to use the
advantages of both data aggregation trees and mobile sinks. The
presented scheme not only makes a load-balanced tree for each
cluster but also provides an optimal tour for the mobile sink(s) by
enjoying an integer linear programming (ILP) model. Hop-count-
based routing results in hotspots in the network and reduces its
lifetime [13, 14]. In this regard, we propose an efficient metric to
fairly construct the weighted data aggregation routing trees.
Furthermore, unlike [16] in which the proposed objective function
only considers the tour delay of the mobile sink, this work presents
a multi-objective function to jointly decrease both energy
consumption of sensors and tour delay of the mobile sink(s). In
[16], the sink interacts directly with all sensors. However, in our
model thanks to the use of the proposed two-level architecture, it
has only an interaction with CHs, which have a large number of
buffered packets. This allows the sink to travel much less distance
and its delay will be reduced. Joint use of the CS theory, mobile
sink, and load-balanced cluster-based routing is another superiority
of this work compared to [16].
In summary, the main contributions of this work are as follows:
• We present the WDAT-OMS algorithm in the form of a two-level
hybrid architecture that jointly considers the CS theory, mobile
sink, and load-balanced cluster-based routing.
• An efficient metric for CH selection is introduced to distribute the
energy consumption among different sensors fairly.
• We propose a load-balanced strategy to develop data aggregation
routing trees.
• An optimal tour for sink mobility is determined by considering a
multi-objective function, which minimises both energy
consumption of sensors and delay of the mobile sink.
• We extend the problem for WSNs equipped with multiple mobile
sinks to increase the network scalability.
• We present extensive simulations to evaluate the proposed
algorithm compared with the other state-of-the-art algorithms in
terms of energy consumption, energy consumption variance, delay
of the sink, and time complexity.
IET Commun., 2020, Vol. 14 Iss. 11, pp. 1826-1837
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
The rest of the paper is organised as follows. In Section 2, the
previous related works are surveyed. In Section 3, we first describe
the network architecture and energy consumption model. Then, the
CS theory is briefly introduced. In Section 4, the proposed
algorithm is described in detail. Extensive simulations on the
performance of the proposed algorithm are presented in Section 5.
Finally, some concluding remarks are provided in Section 6.
2 Related work
In recent years, several studies have been presented on the CS and
data aggregation in WSNs [17–19]. Ebrahimi and Assi [17]
propose an efficient data gathering scheme using the CS theory
named ‘minimum spanning tree projection’. This algorithm creates
a number of minimum spanning trees, each of which rooted at a
randomly selected projection node. Each projection node collects
data of interest nodes and sends the packets to the sink through the
shortest path tree (SPT). Zhang et al. [18] propose the ‘ring
topology-based CS’ data collection scheme to reduce the total
number of transmissions. The proposed algorithm uses dual
compensation-based CS measurement to reconstruct the original
signals with high accuracy. A novel Bayesian CS data gathering
strategy is introduced in [19]. It is an efficient algorithm for
minimising the tour path of the mobile sink. Sensors measure the
parameters of the field and forward data to the nearest gathering
nodes by the SPT routing algorithm. A mobile sink collects data
from the gathering nodes at each round. As an advantage, the
proposed scheme increases the network lifetime.
There have been some studies on jointly considering the CS
theory and cluster-based routing in WSNs [13, 14, 20, 21]. Two
data collection methods named ‘energy-aware CS-based data
aggregation (ECDA)’ and ‘energy-balanced high-level data
aggregation tree (EHDT)’ are proposed in [13]. These schemes not
only balance the energy consumption among different sensors but
also increase the network lifetime. Both algorithms are compatible
with constant and mobile sinks. However, Pakdaman Tirani and
Avokh [13] consider a simple mobility pattern for the mobile sink.
EHDT applies a weighted routing tree for transmitting data
projections from CHs to the sink. This distributes the energy
consumption among different sensors fairly. In [14], two
centralised and distributed clustering algorithms are presented to
reduce the number of transmissions in the network. Each sensor
first transmits its data to the corresponding CH using a cluster-
based routing method and without the CS theory. Then, CHs use
the CS theory to transmit data to the sink. In [13, 14], the hop-
count metric is used for routing the packets between sensors and
CHs. This metric leads to create hotspots in the network. In [20],
the authors first propose a data aggregation method named
‘weighted compressive data aggregation’. It benefits from the
advantage of the sparse random measurement matrix to reduce
energy consumption. Then, they present another data aggregation
method named ‘cluster-based weighted compressive data
aggregation’ to make a significant improvement in the performance
of the network. Sun et al. [21] propose the ‘sparsest random
sampling scheme for cluster-based compressive data gathering
(SRS-CCDG)’ in WSNs. In this work, the network is divided into
several clusters. At each round of data gathering, a random subset
of sensors sense the environment and transmit the measurements to
the corresponding CHs. Then, each CH transmits the aggregated
data to the sink. According to the simulation results, SRS–CCDG
significantly reduces energy consumption and improves the
system's robustness to the node failures. Singanamalla et al. [15],
considering a constant sink node, divide the network into a series
of circular layers. They propose an energy-aware emergency
transmission scheme, which decreases the energy consumption and
increases transmission accuracy.
Over the past few years, several methods have been presented
to select CHs in WSNs [6–10, 22–26]. They generally use the
residual energy and distance factors. For example, in [8], a
distributed CH selection algorithm is presented, which uses the
distances between sensors and sink to improve the energy
consumption in the network. The authors of [9, 22] extend the
method of CH selection in LEACH by considering the residual
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energy of sensors. In [10], a CH selection algorithm called ‘hybrid
grouped grey wolf search optimisation’ is proposed to improve the
lifetime of WSNs. This algorithm focuses on the factors of
distance, delay, energy, and security to select CHs in such a way
that improves the performance of the network. In [23], a clustering
mechanism is proposed to partition the sensors into unequal-size
clusters so that the closer CHs to the sink can preserve more energy
for inter-cluster data forwarding. The clustering scheme presented
in [24] selects CHs with more residual energy through local radio
communication while achieving well CH distribution. The load-
aware rotation of CH (LAR-CH) method was presented in [25]. It
sets a dynamic threshold for CH-rotation to reduce the premature
death of CHs. LAR-CH uses the current energy of CHs to
determine the dynamic threshold for CH-rotation. Behera et al.
[26] propose an efficient CH selection scheme that rotates the CH
position among the sensors with higher energy. The proposed
scheme considers the initial energy, residual energy, and optimum
number of CHs to select the next group of CHs for the network.
However, none of these methods jointly consider the problems of
sink mobility and load-balancing.
As mentioned before, another challenge of WSNs is the
unbalanced energy consumption in different sensors. Joint
clustering and load balancing is the main purpose in [27]. Gherbi et
al. [27] propose a hierarchical routing algorithm named
‘hierarchical energy-balancing multipath’. This algorithm
decreases the energy consumption, balances the energy dissipation
among different sensors, and increases the network lifetime.
Siavoshi et al. [28] present an energy-efficient clustering protocol
that improves both load-balancing and network lifetime. It uses
several virtual circles to form a multi-layer circular structure across
the network. In [29], a balanced multi-path routing algorithm is
proposed by considering the residual energy and hop-count
metrics. The precision of this algorithm grows with increasing the
path length and network density. Network scalability is another
advantage of the proposed algorithm in [29].
In the field of using the mobile sink, some works aim to
heuristically improve the network performance [30, 31], while
other works present the optimisation solutions [16, 32]. In [30], a
mobile sink moves on a pre-determined linear route; while in [31],
multiple controlled data mobile ubiquitous local area network
extension is used in parallel routes. In this scheme, sensors deliver
the measured data to the sinks through the single-hop or multi-hop
transmissions.
In [16], an efficient data gathering mechanism is proposed for
WSNs equipped with single or multiple mobile collectors. A
mobile data collector works like a mobile base station. It starts the
data gathering process from a static sink and periodically traverses
the network to poll sensors one by one. Finally, it returns and
uploads data to the static sink. Ma et al. [16] mainly focus on
minimising the length of data gathering tour by an ILP model and
refer to this as a single-hop data-gathering problem (SHDGP). For
the large-scale networks, Ma et al. [16] use several mobile
collectors instead of a single one. In this method, the mobile
collectors transmit their data for a mobile collector located in the
vicinity of the sink. In [32], taking a mobile base station into
account, the problem of load-balanced data collection is
investigated. The main idea is using the existing multi-hop routing
schemes to achieve further improvements in terms of the network
lifetime. Luo and Hubaux [32] present some constraints on the sink
sites so that each site covers a subset of sensors. The mobile sink
stops at each site to collect the corresponding data.
There are some works which jointly consider the clustering and
mobile sink to improve the network performance [33–37]. In [33],
the authors propose an efficient clustering method along with data
aggregation using multiple mobile sinks. In [34], a mobile sink-
based routing protocol is proposed to prolong the network lifetime
in clustered WSNs. It uses a single mobile sink to collect the
sensed data from CHs. During the data gathering process, the
mobile sink maintains the residual energy of CHs to move to the
high-energy CHs. The proposed algorithm in [35] aims to find the
location of the mobile sink and the optimum number of CHs for
minimising the energy consumption and the overhead of control
packets. In [36], the mobile sinks move in a clockwise or
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counterclockwise direction along the border of the sensing field to
collect data from the closest CHs via single-hop transmissions. In
[37], an energy-efficient cluster-based routing mechanism is
proposed for WSNs with obstacles. The authors use a scheduling
mechanism based on the spanning graphs. They present a heuristic
tour-planning algorithm for the mobile sink to find the obstacle-
avoiding shortest route. However, none of these works use the CS
theory. On the other hand, the authors of [33, 34, 36] consider a
simple mobility pattern for the mobile sink. Furthermore, the
authors of [34, 37] only use a single mobile sink to collect the
sensed data from CHs. Certainly, using multiple mobile sinks not
only increases the scalability of the network but also reduces the
network delay.
In addition to the works discussed above, there are also some
references that study energy consumption from the other
perspectives. For example, Patan and Babu [38] propose an energy-
efficient traffic-aware resource scheduling and re-streaming stream
structure to replace a default scheduling strategy of a storm named
‘re-storm’. This strategy is investigated in three parts: (i)
presenting a mathematical relation between energy consumption,
low response time, and high traffic streams. (ii) Providing various
approaches for reducing energy consumption without affecting the
response time and high performance in overall stream computing
for big data. (iii) Deploying energy-efficient traffic-aware
scheduling on the storm platform. In [39], the authors propose a
self-adaptive technique named ‘energy-efficient internet of things’,
which aims to minimise the energy harvesting in the network. In
[40], a new scheme is presented, namely ‘resistive to selective drop
attack’, to provide effective security against the selective drop
attack in wireless ad-hoc networks. As an advantage, the proposed
scheme is compatible with different routing schemes, e.g. ‘ad hoc
on-demand distance vector’ and ‘dynamic source routing’. It
reduces the overhead, jitter, and energy consumption in the
network.
3 Network model and assumptions
In this section, we first present the preliminaries of our work
including the network model, assumptions, and energy
consumption model. Then, the CS theory is briefly described.
3.1 Network model
We consider a WSN consisting of N sensors and S mobile sinks,
where the sensors are randomly distributed in a a × a square area.
Each node is equipped with an omni-directional antenna. The
network is modelled as a bidirectional graph, i.e. G(V, E), where V
consists of sensors and sinks and E represents the wireless links
between them. Two nodes are directly connected and form a
communication link if they are within the transmission range of
each other denoted by R. It is assumed that there is no interference
in the network by utilising the orthogonal codes in data
transmission. In addition, no packet will be lost during the
transmissions.
In this study, according to Fig. 1, a two-level hybrid architecture
is used. At the first level, the sensors are organised into C clusters.
Each sensor transmits its data to the corresponding CH via a
weighted data aggregation tree. At the second level, the network
has B ‘polling points’ deployed as a grid arrangement. Polling
points are defined as the locations where the mobile sink stops and
receives the buffered data of CHs. In fact, each mobile sink starts a
tour to periodically traverse a part of the network and collects the
aggregated data of CHs through a single-hop transmission. Since
there must be at least one polling point in the neighbourhood of
each sensor, the grid length, i.e. the distance between neighbour
polling points in the same row or column, is assumed to be equal to
the transmission range of sensors.
This work relies on a real traffic model in which sensors send
the measured data to the sink, round by round. The procedure of
measuring the environmental parameters is periodically repeated at
specific times. The time between two consecutive sensing of the
environment is defined as a round. Given the intended application
for WSNs, i.e. non-real-time monitoring of the environment, it is
IET Commun., 2020, Vol. 14 Iss. 11, pp. 1826-1837
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020

Fig. 1  Typical example for the applied two-level architecture consisted of
the first-level data aggregation trees and sink tour
assumed that the duration of a round is such that the mobile sink
has the opportunity to traverse the network and collects the
buffered data of CHs. However, we aim to minimise this time.
In general, the energy consumed by sensors is influenced by
three factors, including data sensing, data processing, and wireless
communication. However, the first two factors are negligible
compared to the energy consumption for wireless communication
[3, 20]. We use the first-order radio model, in which the transmitter
dissipates the energy to run the radio electronics and the power
amplifier, and the receiver consumes a different amount of energy
to run the radio electronics. According to this model, the energy
consumption for transmitting an L-bit packet over distance d is
modelled as follows [5, 20]:
ETx(L, d) = ETx‐elec(L) + ETx‐amp(L, d)
(1)
= L × ETx‐elec + L × ϵamp × d 2,
where ETx‐elec is the electrical energy required to run the circuitry in
the transmitter and ϵamp shows the energy consumption of the
transmission amplifier. The electrical energy factor in the
transmitter, i.e. ETx‐elec, depends on different factors such as digital
coding, modulation, and spreading of the signal, whereas the term
of amplifier energy, i.e. ϵampd 2, uses the square of the distance
between transmitter and receiver to consider the acceptable bit
error rate.
In addition, the energy for receiving an L-bit packet can be
computed as follows [5, 20]:
ERx(L) = L × ERx‐elec, (2)
where ERx‐elec is the electrical energy required to run the circuitry in
the receiver. Following the other references [5, 20, 41], we ignore
the energy consumption of baseband signal processing blocks such
as source coding and pulse shaping. In fact, these factors are quite
small compared to the energy consumption of the radio frequency
circuitry.
Nomenclature summarises the notations that will be used in this
paper.
3.2 CS theory
CS theory presents a novel technique to efficiently recover a sparse
signal from its CS measurements at a rate less than the Nyquist rate
[17]. Consider a data vector collected by the sensors, i.e.
X = [x1, x2, …, xN ]T ∈ RN . [ ⋅ ]T indicates the transpose operator.
This vector has a representation as X = Ψ Θ in the proper basis of
Ψ = [ψ i j] ∈ RN × N , in which Θ = [θ1, θ2, …, θN ]T is the coefficient
vector of X in the basis of Ψ. X is a k-sparse vector, if it has at most
k non-zero elements (k ≪ N) in Θ. According to the CS theory, a k-
IET Commun., 2020, Vol. 14 Iss. 11, pp. 1826-1837
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
sparse signal can be recovered by only M ≪ N random
measurements, i.e. Y = [y1, y2, …, yM ]T ∈ RM . This vector is
generated as Y = Φ X, where Φ = [φi j] ∈ RM × N is called as the
measurement matrix. Thus, the ith element of the measurement
N
vector Y can be stated as yi = ∑ j = 1 φi j x j. Measurement matrix Φ
satisfies the restricted isometry property (RIP) of order 2k if there
exists a constant δk ∈ (0, 1) such that [42]
(1 − δk) ∥ X ∥ 22 ≤ ∥ Φ X ∥ 22 ≤ (1 + δk) ∥ X ∥ 22, (3)
N 1/ p
where ∥ X ∥ p = ∑i = 1 xi p represents the lp-norm of vector
X . The existence of RIP for the random matrices, e.g. Gaussian
matrix with uniformly and independently distributed elements and
Bernoulli matrix with ±1 elements, has been proved [20]. A k-
sparse signal can be reconstructed from only M measurements by
utilising the following l1 optimisation expression [43]:
^
Θ = arg min ∥ Θ ∥ 1 subject to Y = Φ Ψ Θ, (4)
N ^
where ∥ Θ ∥ 1 = ∑i = 1 ∣ θi ∣ and X = Ψ Θ.
It should be noted that the practical performance of the CS
theory depends on the sparseness of signals and reconstruction
algorithms. Certainly, increasing the number of CS measurements
leads to a better quality of data recovery.
4 Weighted data aggregation trees with optimal
mobile sink(s) (WDAT-OMS)
In this section, we first present the problem description and then,
introduce the WDAT-OMS algorithm in detail.
4.1 Problem description
Given the explained model in Section 3, the goal is to reduce the
energy consumption of sensors and tour delay of the mobile sink in
WSNs. For this purpose, we use a two-level hybrid architecture in
which the first level organises sensors into C clusters. Each sensor
transmits its data to the corresponding CH via a weighted data
aggregation tree. At the second level, one (or multiple) sink(s)
traverses the network to collect the aggregated data from CHs. The
main issues to be discussed include
• Employing an efficient method for clustering and CH selection to
fairly distribute the energy consumption among different sensors.
• Developing a load-balanced data aggregation routing tree in each
cluster that connects the sensors to the corresponding CH.
• Using the hybrid CS theory along with the first-level routing
process.
• Determining an appropriate path for the sink tour to jointly
reduce both energy consumption of sensors and sink delay in the
network.
4.2 Algorithm description
In this subsection, the WDAT-OMS algorithm is proposed to
jointly address the problems of CS theory, load-balanced cluster-
based routing, and sink mobility in WSNs. Unlike sensors that
have a simple structure, the mobile sink can be a mobile robot or a
vehicle equipped with a rechargeable battery, powerful central
processing unit (CPU), large memory, and global positioning
system (GPS) device. Thus, in this work, the decision-making
centre of the network is the sink node. In fact, the basic
calculations, including the CH selection, optimal tour etc., are
made in the sink node.
Similar to the other protocols, some preliminary signalling is
required at the initial deployment of sensors and before monitoring
the environment. For example, in the beginning, the sink node gets
the location of sensors by one of the conventional localisation
services [44]. Given the grid layout of polling points, it is also well
aware of their position. Owing to the static nature of sensors and
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polling points, the distances between them remain constant during
the network activity and this information does not need to be
updated frequently.
WDAT-OMS partitions the sensors into C clusters based on
their location. For this purpose, it first randomly selects C nodes as
the initial set of selected nodes (SNs). Certainly, this initial set
cannot be the optimal choice and should be modified by the
following steps:
(1) The Euclidean distance from each sensor to the current SNs is
measured. Each sensor joins to the nearest SN. In this way, each
SN forms a cluster that should be modified.
(2) For each cluster, a new SN is determined in such a way that the
sum of the Euclidean distance from all of its sensors to the new SN
is minimised. In fact, this step aims to select a closer SN to the
centre of the corresponding cluster.
(3) Two above steps are repeated until there are no more changes in
SNs. Repeating the previous steps allows the algorithm to
gradually converge to the best clusters.
Given the fixed location of sensors, the clustering algorithm is
implemented only after their deployment in the network. However,
as we will see later, the role of CH is rotated between sensors,
round by round. In general, various factors influence the optimal
number of clusters, including the number of sensors, density of
sensors, and number of CS measurements. As the number of
clusters increases, the size of each cluster will decrease. This
reduces the number of transmissions and energy consumption in
each cluster. On the other hand, the number of transmissions and
consequently, the energy consumption at the second level of the
network will be increased. However, thanks to the use of the hybrid
CS method at the first level and the optimal tour for the mobile
sink at the second level of the network, the overall energy
consumption is reduced. From the delay point of view, increasing
the number of clusters leads to an increase in the number of CHs.
This increases the delay of the sink tour. Thus, there is a trade-off
between the energy consumption of sensors and the delay of the
sink tour.
After the clustering, WDAT-OMS is run in three phases at each
round. A round is defined as the time between two consecutive
sensing of the environment. In the first phase, CHs are determined
by considering the residual energy of sensors, Euclidean distance
between sensors and polling points, and a punishment factor. In the
second phase, each sensor transmits its data to the corresponding
CH by using the first-level data aggregation tree and the hybrid CS
method. In the third phase, the mobile sink starts an optimal tour to
traverse the network. It stops at the selected points to collect the
buffered data in CHs, and finally, returns to its starting point. In the
following, different phases of WDAT-OMS are explained in detail.
4.2.1 Phase 1 – CH selection: In WSNs, CHs consume more
energy than the other sensors. Thus, CH selection significantly
affects the network's lifetime. WDAT-OMS uses the EDCS metric
to select an efficient CH for each cluster by jointly considering the
residual energy, Euclidean distance, and punishment factor. This
makes the role of CH to rotate between different sensors and they
lose their energy synchronously. However, it should be noted that
during a round, CHs remain fixed and they may only change at the
beginning of each round. The proposed EDCS metric is as follows:
CH( j) = arg max Pr(i, r) ×
Er(i)
, (5)
i ∈ CM( j) 1 + d i, NP(i)
where CH( j) represents the selected CH for cluster j, Er(i) denotes
the residual energy of sensor i, and NP(i) is the nearest polling
point located at the transmission range of sensor i. Also, d i, NP(i)
shows the Euclidean distance between sensor i and NP(i). In fact,
among the members of cluster j, i.e. CM( j), a sensor with more
EDCS is selected as the next CH.
In EDCS, the residual energy factor causes the high-energy
sensors to have more chance to be selected as CH. This leads the
sensors to lose their energy fairly, and subsequently, the network
lifetime will be increased. Unlike the works, which use the inter-
1830
node distances, we adopt the distance between sensors and polling
points to consider the sink mobility in CH selection. This makes
sensors near the polling points more likely to be selected as CH. As
a result, according to the first-order radio model, the energy
consumption at the second level of the network is reduced.
However, by increasing the number of clusters, the number of
sensors in each cluster is reduced. Therefore, the sensors near the
polling points are repeatedly selected as CHs at different rounds. In
fact, as the number of clusters increases, the distance factor
diminishes the role of the energy factor. This reduces load
balancing ability. Thus, we have a trade-off between energy
consumption and load-balancing. To solve this problem and control
this trade-off, we add the punishment factor, which reduces the
chance of selecting the current CH at the next rounds. Pr(i, r)
represents the punishment factor of sensor i at round r. It is initially
set to 1 for all sensors. If a sensor is selected as CH at the current
round, its Pr is divided by an empirical constant parameter (b)
m(i, r)
1
Pr i, r + 1 = Pr(i, r), (6)
b
where
1, if sensor i is selected as CH at round r,
m(i, r) = (7)
0, otherwise .
Since the sensors are randomly distributed in the network, a
sensor may be very close to the polling point. In this case,
d(i, NP(i)) tends to zero and the fraction of Er(i)/d(i, NP(i))
becomes infinite. As a result, the effect of Pr and Er(i) in CH
selection is ignored. Hence, ‘1’ was added to the denominator.
4.2.2 Phase 2 – constructing the first-level data aggregation
trees: Unlike the previous works [13, 14], which use the hop-count
based routing trees, WDAT-OMS constructs the weighted data
aggregation trees for routing packets from sensors to the
corresponding CHs. This balances the energy consumption among
different sensors of the network.
Let consider link (x, y) weighted by Cost(x, y). WDAT-OMS
jointly uses the residual energy and inter-sensor distance to weight
this link as follows:
d(x, y)
Cost(x, y) = . (8)
Er(x) + Er(y)
This weighting method selects the sensors with more residual
energy on the paths with shorter links. As a result, the energy will
be consumed at the same rate in different sensors. On the other
hand, according to the first-order radio model, choosing the shorter
links reduces the energy consumption in the network.
Based on the proposed metric, each cluster finds the best
modified SPT by the Dijkstra algorithm. This data aggregation tree
connects all sensors of a cluster to the corresponding CH through
the minimum-cost paths. Let P j(i, CH) be the set of all possible
paths connecting sensor i to CH in cluster j. The optimal path,
denoted by poptj (i, CH), is defined as the minimum-cost path among
all paths in P j(i, CH), i.e.
popt
j (i, CH) = arg min
p j(i, CH) ∈ P j(i, CH)
∑ Cost(x, y) . (9)
(x, y) ∈ p j(i, CH)
Certainly, by reducing the energy of sensors at different rounds,
different routing trees are created in each cluster. At each round,
considering the new CHs and current residual energy of sensors,
WDAT-OMS provides the routing trees in such a way that not only
balances the energy among different sensors but also decreases the
energy consumption in the network.
In this way, each sensor transmits its data to the corresponding
parent sensor. Intermediate sensors aggregate the received data by
their own sensed data and hierarchically send the result towards the
sink node. For this purpose, WDAT-OMS uses the hybrid CS
IET Commun., 2020, Vol. 14 Iss. 11, pp. 1826-1837
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020

Fig. 2  First-level data aggregation tree by applying the hybrid CS method
for a typical cluster
method, in which both non-CS and plain-CS strategies are applied
[17]. The first strategy is used for the intermediate sensors that
transmit less than M packets and the second one is adopted for the
sensors with more than M packets. In the non-CS strategy, the
intermediate sensors send the packets without any data
compression. While, according to the plain-CS, the intermediate
sensors use the CS theory to send M packets to the parent sensors.
Thus, the sink reconstructs the original data using M coded packets
instead of N packets (M ≪ N). Each sensor multiplies its data, i.e.
x j, with the jth column vector of the measurement matrix Φ, i.e.
[φ1 j, φ2 j, …, φM j]T, and produces a vector with size M.
In real networks, each sensor generates its measurement
coefficient using a pseudorandom number generator seeded with its
own address. Hence, there is no need for transmitting the
measurement matrix to all sensors. In fact, during the data
gathering process, each sensor requires to storage a column of the
measurement matrix, which takes up a little memory space, and it
is compatible with its memory capacity. An intermediate sensor
waits to receive all vectors from its children and adds them to its
own vector. It transmits the resulting vector to its parent sensor
using M packets. As explained in Section 3.2, matrix Φ has N
columns and M rows so that each column is assigned to a sensor of
the network and each row corresponds to a CS measurement. Once
sink receives all CS measurements, it can recover the original data
of sensors by a conventional recovery algorithm. This CS-based
data aggregation method benefits from the fact that the encoding
process in each sensor is carried out in a distributed manner by
some simple and low-cost operations such as addition and
multiplication. In fact, the main calculations and recovery process
are pushed to the decoding phase on the sink node which does not
have the problem of limiting energy and memory. It should also be
noted that the sensors do not require matrix Ψ for encoding. It is
only required at the sink for data recovery.
Fig. 2 shows an example of applying the hybrid CS method for
a typical cluster. In this figure, the number written near each link
denotes the number of transmitted packets of that link. The solid
black points represent the aggregator sensors that use the plain-CS
strategy and the white points represent the sensors that use the non-
CS strategy. In the highlighted part of the figure, sensors 1 and 4
transmit one packet to sensor 6 using the non-CS strategy. It
transmits the received packets and its own packet to sensor 8.
Sensor 2 collects the packet from its children in a similar way.
Also, sensor 3 sends one packet using the non-CS strategy to
sensor 8. By considering M = 6, sensor 8 transmits six packets
using the plain-CS strategy to sensor 9. Similarly, this sensor
transmits six packets to CH.
4.2.3 Phase 3- second-level data transmission: WDAT-OMS
uses a mobile sink to collect the aggregated data from CHs at the
second level of the network. Although the mobile sink is not
suitable for some real-time applications due to its delay, it is an
efficient technique to reduce the energy consumption in data
IET Commun., 2020, Vol. 14 Iss. 11, pp. 1826-1837
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
gathering applications. The mobile sink starts an optimal tour from
an appropriate point (a polling point with the closest CH) and stops
at the selected polling points to collect the buffered data from CHs.
Finally, it returns to the starting point. Once the sink receives all M
measurements from CHs, the original data of sensors can be
recovered. Certainly, at each round, the optimal tour of sink
changes depending on the location of the new CHs. WDAT-OMS
recalculates the sink trajectory after identifying CHs at the
beginning of each round, and it will remain unchanged until the
end of the round.
Towards this goal, we use the optimisation model presented in
[16] with some modifications. Let us consider the set of polling
points as P = {P0, P1, P2, …, PB − 1}. Actually, every polling point
cannot be a good candidate for stopping the mobile sink. For
example, consider a typical polling point which has no CH in its
neighbourhood. Adding this point to the optimisation problem not
only has no benefits but also increases its complexity. Therefore,
depending on the location of CHs at each round, the polling points
should be considered that have at least one CH in their
neighbourhood. This set is called a ‘reduced set of polling points
(RSP)’.
Given the CHs obtained in phase 1, RSP, and set of neighbour
CHs for each candidate polling point, the goal is to find a set of
polling points and determine the sequence to visit them, such that
the objective function is minimised. In fact, we aim to not only
reduce the energy consumption at the second level of network, but
also minimise the length of the sink tour. Following [16], let us
consider a complete directed graph, i.e. Gp = (RSP, A), where
ai j ∈ A represents the arc which connects polling point i to polling
point j with cost W(i, j). Suppose the binary variable xi, j which
shows whether arc ai j belongs to the optimal tour. It equals to one,
if ai j belongs to the optimal tour and zero otherwise. Also, consider
the binary variable I j that represents which polling points are
located on the sink trajectory. I j equals to one, if polling point j is
located on the sink trajectory and zero otherwise. Constraints (10)–
(15) model a closed route for the sink tour [16].
Given the binary nature of I j, constraint (10) guarantees that
only one arc is imported to each selected polling point on the sink
tour. In fact, the sink tour is a closed-loop without any extra
branch. In this context, constraint (11) guarantees that only one arc
is originated from each selected polling point on the sink tour [16].
∑ xi, j = I j ∀ j ∈ RSP, (10)
i ∈ RSP, i ≠ j
∑ xi, j = Ii ∀i ∈ RSP . (11)
j ∈ RSP, i ≠ j
Constraint (12) causes each CH to be located in neighbouring of
at least one polling points selected on the sink tour, such that every
CH can directly communicate with the mobile sink [16]:
∑ Ii ⩾ 1 ∀CH j ∈ CH, (12)
i ∈ NB(CH j)
where CH shows the set of CHs and NB(CH j) presents the set of
polling points located in the transmissions range of jth CH.
Constraints (13)–(15) prevent the creation of sub-tours in the
mobility path of the sink. In these constraints, yi, j shows the flow
value from polling point i to polling point j on arc ai j. In particular,
constraint (13) causes the flow to be passed only through the
polling points selected on the tour. In this constraint, RSP
indicates the number of members in RSP. Constraint (14) specifies
that the number of flow units entering the starting polling point (P0)
is equal to the number of selected polling points on the sink tour.
Finally, constraint (15) leads to out one unit flow from each of the
other points on the tour [16].
yi, j ⩽∣ RSP ∣ xi, j ∀i, j ∈ RSP, (13)
1831
 ∑ y j, P0 = ∑ I j,
j ∈ RSP {P0} j ∈ RSP {P0}
∑ y j i − ∑ yk j = I j
, , ∀ j ∈ RSP {P0} .
i k
For the purposes described above, we propose the following
objective function to jointly minimise both energy consumption of
sensors and delay of sink tour:
minimise ∑ W(i, j) subject to
i, j ∈ RSP, i ≠ j
where
(mi + m j)αd(i, j) β
W(i, j) = xi, j .
(ni + n j)γ
d(i, j) represents the Euclidean distance between polling points i
and j, and mi shows the total Euclidean distances between polling
point i and its neighbouring CHs. Also, ni denotes the number of
CHs in the neighbourhood of polling point i. In fact, the proposed
objective function prefers to select the polling point, which not
only has more number of neighbouring CHs, but also has less
distance to its CHs. In this regard, the term of (mi + m j) gives more
chance to the polling point, which has less distances from its
neighbouring CHs. According to the first-order radio model, this
reduces the energy consumption at the second level of the network.
(ni + n j) selects the polling points that have more CHs in their
neighbourhood. This reduces the number of polling points on the
sink tour. As a result, its length will be reduced. d(i, j) also makes a
shorter tour and consequently, decreases the sink delay. It should be
noted that α, β, and γ are the adjusting binary powers that control
the weight of different factors to achieve different metrics.
Consider Fig. 3 to get more insight into the problem. By
assuming a network consisted of 20 random CHs and 36 polling
points (6 × 6), Figs. 3a and b show the sink tour obtained by
WDAT-OMS and SHDGP [16], respectively. The grid length and
transmission range are assumed to be equal. In Fig. 3a, the mobile
sink starts its tour from polling point 8. Compared to the tour in
Fig. 3b, it travels less distance to traverse the network and collects
data from CHs. In Fig. 3b, the selection of polling points 1, 14, and
20 is inefficient and increases both delay and energy consumption.
As an example, CH 5 is located in the neighbourhood of polling
points 1, 2, 7, and 8. However, with respect to the other adjacent
Fig. 3  A typical example for sink tour considering 20 CHs and 36 polling points (6 × 6) formed by
(a) WDAT-OMS algorithm, (b) SHDGP algorithm [16]
1832
(14)
CHs, polling point 8 is the best stop point for the sink. In addition,
given the location of CHs in the network, selecting polling points
19, 20, and 21 instead of 14, 20, and 26 leads to a further reduction
(15)
in delay and energy consumption.
In the cases where the network is equipped with multiple
mobile sinks, it is equally partitioned into several parts. By
considering the distribution of CHs, RSP is formed for each part to
independently run the described optimisation model. Each mobile
sink traverses a part of the network to collect the buffered data of
the corresponding CHs via single-hop transmissions.
(10) − (15), (16)
The use of this developed scheme for large-scale networks not
only decreases the delay of the sink tour, but also reduces the
complexity of optimisation problem. As an example, consider Fig.
4 where 400 sensors are randomly distributed in a 500 m × 500 m
area. This figure compares the second level of the proposed scheme
for two cases of single-sink WSN (Fig. 4a) and double-sink WSN
(17) (Fig. 4b), assuming 20 CHs, 36 polling points (6 × 6) with a grid
length of 100 m, and R = 100 m. In Fig. 4a, a single sink starts its
tour from polling point 11 and collects the buffered data from CHs
1, 8, and 18. Then, it stops at polling point 16 and collects data of
CHs 2, 7, and 11. In a similar way, it stops at the other selected
polling points and collects data from the corresponding CHs via
single-hop transmissions. Finally, it returns to the starting point. By
assuming the speed of 1 m/s, the tour delay of this case is equal to
1536.4 s. In contrast, Fig. 4b shows the network equipped with two
mobile sinks under the same conditions. In each part, a sink is
responsible for collecting data from the corresponding CHs. Table
1 shows the details of this figure. In this case, the tour delay of
both sinks is equal to 1006.4 s. However, since both sinks
simultaneously traverse the corresponding areas, the total delay is
equal to the maximum delay of the sub-networks, i.e. 1006.4 s.
Here, after describing all three phases of the WDAT-OMS
algorithm, it should be noted again that the decision-making centre
of the network is the sink node. Unlike sensors that have a simple
structure, the mobile sink can be a mobile robot or a vehicle
equipped with a rechargeable battery, powerful CPU, large
memory, and GPS device. Thus, the basic calculations, including
the cost of links, CH selection, optimal tour etc., are made in the
sink node. To clarify the problem, let us reconsider the proposed
EDCS metric in (5). In the following, we particularly describe
where and how CHs are determined. However, the cost of links,
and subsequently, the first-level data aggregation trees are
determined in a similar way.
According to (5), three factors are required to determine the CH
of each cluster: residual energy of sensors, Euclidean distance
between each sensor and its neighbour polling points, and
punishment factor of sensors. However, in the first round, only the
IET Commun., 2020, Vol. 14 Iss. 11, pp. 1826-1837
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
Fig. 4  A typical example for data aggregation in both levels of the network by assuming 400 sensors (N = 400), 20 clusters (C = 20), and 36 polling points
(6 × 6)
(a) Single-sink WSN, (b) Double-sink WSN

Table 1 List of selected polling points and corresponding sensors. Once the mobile sink reaches a selected polling point, it
CHs in Fig. 4b assuming 20 CHs, 36 polling points, and two stops and sends a beep to wake up the transceiver of the
mobile sinks neighbouring CHs. It collects the buffered data and control
Selected polling Corresponding Corresponding information from CHs, and at the same point calculates the new
point sink CHs configuration of the corresponding clusters for the next round.
Subsequently, the mobile sink locally returns the result to the
11 1 8, 18
corresponding CHs. Each CH notifies its sensors of the new
5 1 1, 16 configuration through the existing first-level routing tree. Finally,
10 1 2, 11 the mobile sink moves to the next points to complete its trajectory.
8 1 4, 13 At the beginning of the next round, it determines its new optimal
16 1 7 trajectory based on the presented scheme and starts to aggregate
18 1 3, 19 data of new CHs.
23 2 15
21 2 12 5 Simulation results
19 2 10 In this section, several scenarios are presented to compare the
26 2 5 performance of the proposed algorithm with ‘centralised clustering
34 2 14 algorithm (CCA)’ [14], ‘ECDA with constant sink in centre’ [13],
29 2 6, 9, 17, 20 ‘EHDT with constant sink in (0,0)’ [13], and SHDGP [16]. With
the aim of a fair comparison, the CCA algorithm is modified to be
run round by round. Furthermore, to evaluate the described strategy
for providing the first-level data aggregation trees, we use the hop-
distance factor is required for determining CHs. This is because all
count metric once again for constructing these trees. In the
sensors have approximately the same initial energy and their
following, this is referred to as ‘data aggregation trees with optimal
punishment factor is also equal to one. At the next rounds, CHs are
mobile sink(s) (DAT-OMS)’ to be distinct from WDAT-OMS. In
selected based on the aggregated control information at the
fact, in DAT-OMS, each sensor transmits its data to the
previous round. In fact, at round r, CHs are selected based on the
corresponding CH through the pure SPT and by utilising the hybrid
aggregated control information at round r − 1. For this purpose,
CS method. It should be noted that the first and third phases of
during the data gathering process at round r − 1, the information of
DAT-OMS are completely similar to the WDAT-OMS algorithm.
all sensors is also collected locally. This information includes the
The performance of the algorithms is evaluated in terms of
residual energy of each sensor and the round numbers in which that
energy consumption, energy consumption variance, and tour delay.
sensor is selected as CH. Certainly, the mobile sink is well aware
Both energy consumption and energy consumption variance are
of the location of sensors and polling points by the described
calculated after the 10th round. From the perspective of statistics
preliminary signalling at the initial deployment of sensors. Each
theory, the variance is a suitable metric that shows how far a set of
sensor knows the length of packets it must send to its parent. It is
numbers are spread out from their average value. In fact, a
also well aware of its distance to its parent. Thus, each sensor can
easily calculate how much energy it will have at the end of the reduction in the energy consumption variance (σE2 ) demonstrates a
current round. The number of times a sensor is selected as CH is better load-balancing in the network. This metric is defined as
also used to calculate its punishment factor. Accordingly, each follows:
sensor transmits its information along with the sensed data to the
N
corresponding CH via the first-level routing tree at round r − 1. 1
N i∑
2
σE2 = E0 − Er(i) − Ec , (18)
This information is very small compared to the sensed data. =1
However, we consider a fractional of each packet for this control
information. The current CH of each cluster buffers this where E0 and Ec are the initial energy and average energy
information and sends it along with the aggregated data to the
consumption of sensors, respectively. Also, since the speed of sink
mobile sink.
(V ) is assumed to be 1 m/s, tour delay is calculated as the sum of
As mentioned before, the clusters are constant during the
network activity and only the role of CH is rotated between the

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© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
Table 2 Simulation parameters
Parameters Value Parameters Value
L 1024 bits γ 1
ETx‐elec 50 nJ/bit R 100 m
ϵamp 100 pJ/bit/m2 N 400
E0 5 kJ V 1 m/s
ERx‐elec 50 nJ/bit b 2
α 1 ρ 10
β 1 a 500 m

Fig. 6  Energy consumption variance as a function of the number of

sensors for 15 clusters (C = 15) in scenario 1

Fig. 5  Energy consumption as a function of the number of sensors for 15

clusters (C = 15) in scenario 1

the Euclidean distances between the consecutive polling points on

the tour.
By assuming R = 100 m and B = 36 (6 × 6), N sensors are
randomly distributed over a 500 m × 500 m square area. We
consider a grid arrangement for polling points in which each
polling point is separated from its adjacent neighbours in horizontal
and vertical directions by the same distance named grid length.
Since there should be at least one polling point in the
neighbourhood of each sensor, the grid length is assumed to be
equal to the transmission range of sensors, i.e. 100 m.
In the following, considering four parameters N, ρ, C, and S, we
present several scenarios to study different aspects of the
algorithms. N is the number of sensors, ρ = N /M represents the
compressive ratio, C denotes the number of clusters, and S shows
the number of mobile sinks. In all scenarios, the simulation
parameters are set according to Table 2 unless otherwise is
described. It is assumed that a part of the 1024-bit packets (100 bits
on average) is overhead required for synchronisation, preambles,
addressing etc. Also, for simplicity and following the other works
[5, 20], the electrical energy required to run the circuitry in both
transmitter and receiver is assumed to be 50 nJ/bit.
Since the sensors are randomly distributed in the network, we
run the algorithms several times and finally, the average of results
is presented. Each data point in the graphs is obtained by averaging
the results of 50 individual runs. The error bar at each data point
represents the standard deviation of the results. In each run, the
network topology is checked to be connected. If the generated
topology has at least one isolated sensor, it is regenerated until a
connected network is obtained.
Scenario 1: In the first scenario, assuming C = 15, we
investigate the effect of the number of sensors on the network
performance. The results are shown in Figs. 5 and 6. By increasing
the number of sensors, more data should be sent over the network.
This not only exacerbates the energy consumption (Fig. 5), but also
reduces the load-balancing in the network (Fig. 6).
The results show that both energy consumption and energy
consumption variance in the proposed algorithms are smaller than
CCA, ‘ECDA with constant sink in centre’, and ‘EHDT with
constant sink in (0,0)’. WDAT-OMS and DAT-OMS address the
1834
Fig. 7  Energy consumption variance as a function of the number of
sensors for four clusters (C = 4) in scenario 1
problems of CS theory, efficient clustering, CH selection, and sink
mobility. For CH selection, both algorithms use the EDCS metric,
which jointly considers the residual energy, Euclidean distance, and
punishment factor. The mobile sink traverses the network optimally
and stops at the selected polling points to collect the buffered data
of the closest CHs. This reduces the number of transmissions and
consequently, decreases energy consumption. However, WDAT-
OMS consumes less energy than DAT-OMS and it balances the
energy among the sensors more fairly. In WDAT-OMS, each sensor
transmits its data to the corresponding CH via a weighted routing
tree. This tree consists of sensors with more residual energy on the
paths with shorter links. This improves the load-balancing in the
network compared to the hop-count metric (Fig. 6). DAT-OMS
uses the hop-count metric that leads to trees consisting of long-
distance hops. According to the first-order radio model, this
increases the energy consumption in the network (Fig. 5).
It is also worth noting that as the number of clusters decreases,
the superiority of WDAT-OMS becomes more apparent in terms of
load balancing. For example, Fig. 7 shows the energy consumption
variance for C = 4 in the same conditions. In fact, as the number of
clusters decreases, the number of sensors in each cluster increases.
Thus, the first-level data aggregation trees can balance the energy
among different sensors more efficiently.
IET Commun., 2020, Vol. 14 Iss. 11, pp. 1826-1837
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020

Fig. 8  Energy consumption as a function of the number of clusters for 400
sensors (N = 400) in scenario 2
Fig. 9  Energy consumption variance as a function of the number of
clusters for 400 sensors (N = 400) in scenario 2
Scenario 2: In this scenario, assuming N = 400, the number of
clusters varies from 7 to 21. The results are shown in Figs. 8 and 9.
As the number of clusters increases, each of them becomes
smaller. Accordingly, the number of transmissions at the first level
of the network is reduced. In the proposed algorithms, thanks to the
use the optimal mobile sink, CHs transmit the buffered data
through the single-hop transmission. Thus, by increasing the
number of clusters, the energy consumption of these algorithms is
decreased. However, other algorithms use the second-level routing
tree to transmit the CS measurements from CHs to the sink. By
increasing the number of clusters, this tree grows. Thus, due to the
increasing number of transmissions, the energy consumption also
increases.
Furthermore, as justified before, both energy consumption and
energy consumption variance of the proposed algorithms, i.e. DAT-
OMS and WDAT-OMS, are smaller than the other algorithms for a
different number of clusters.
Scenario 3: In this scenario, assuming C = 25, we study the
efficiency of the proposed CH selection metric, i.e. EDCS, in
comparison with the other metrics for two cases of N = 200 and
N = 600. With the aim of a fair comparison, we use the CH
selection metric of [13, 20] in our algorithm. We also consider the
EDCS metric for both cases of ‘with’ and ‘without’ the punishment
factor to evaluate the effect of this factor on the performance of the
network. Figs. 10 and 11 compare the energy consumption and
energy consumption variance for both low density network
(N = 200) and high density network (N = 600), respectively.
IET Commun., 2020, Vol. 14 Iss. 11, pp. 1826-1837
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
Fig. 10  Energy consumption as a function of the network density for 25
clusters (C = 25) in scenario 3
Fig. 11  Energy consumption variance as a function of the network density
for 25 clusters (C = 25) in scenario 3
It is clear that ‘EDCS with punishment factor’ has the best
performance in terms of energy consumption and energy
consumption variance. Unlike the strategy presented in [13, 20],
EDCS jointly considers the Euclidean distances between sensors
and polling points, residual energy of sensors, and punishment
factor to select CHs. Given the use of the mobile sink, it prefers to
select the sensors with less distance to the polling points as CHs.
Thus, according to the first-order radio model, the second-level
energy consumption is reduced. Furthermore, both energy
consumption and energy consumption variance in ‘EDCS with
punishment factor’ are smaller than ‘EDCS without punishment
factor’. In particular, by eliminating the punishment factor, energy
consumption variance is significantly increased. This factor
reduces the chance of re-selecting the sensors previously chosen as
CH. Thus, the role of CH rotates between different sensors and
they lose their energy synchronously.
In confirmation of the results obtained in scenario 1, the energy
consumption increases as the number of sensors increases. In fact,
by increasing the number of sensors, more data should be sent over
the network. This not only increases the energy consumption (Fig.
10), but also reduces the load-balancing in the network; thus, the
energy consumption variance will be increased (Fig. 11).
Scenario 4: In this scenario, assuming N = 400 and C = 10, we
compare the DAT-OMS and WDAT-OMS algorithms for different
values of α and different number of sinks. The results are shown in
Figs. 12 and 13. Let us consider the objective function presented in
(16) and (17). As α increases, the chance of selecting the closer
polling points to CHs will be increased. Thus, according to the
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Fig. 12  Energy consumption as a function of parameter α for 400 sensors
(N = 400) and ten clusters (C = 10) in scenario 4
Fig. 13  Delay of sink as a function of parameter α for 400 sensors
(N = 400) and ten clusters (C = 10) in scenario 4
first-order radio model, energy consumption is reduced (Fig. 12).
This is associated with an increase in the sink delay (Fig. 13). For
α = 0.5, the most energy consumption and the least delay is
observed.
On the other hand, by increasing the number of mobile sinks,
the number of partitions in the network is increased. This divides a
single tour into multiple parallel sub-tours. Since all sinks
simultaneously traverse the corresponding area, the total delay is
equal to the maximum delay of sub-tours. Thus, the sink delay of
‘DAT-OMS with S = 4’ and ‘WDAT-OMS with S = 4’ are less
than the other cases. It is worth noting that both DAT-OMS and
WDAT-OMS have the same method for CH selection and sink
trajectory formation. This causes both algorithms to have the same
sink delay (Fig. 13).
Scenario 5: In this scenario, we compare the tour delay in the
proposed algorithms and SHDGP [16] for a different number of
clusters and a different number of sinks. With the aim of a fair
comparison, SHDGP is used at the second level of the network to
directly collect the aggregated data of CHs. The results are shown
in Fig. 14. In this figure, due to the similar delay of both DAT-
OMS and WDAT-OMS algorithms, we show them as ‘DAT/
WDAT-OMS’. The proposed algorithms use an improved objective
function, which not only aims to reduce the length of the sink tour,
but also minimises the number of selected polling points. Thus, in
the same conditions, i.e. using a single sink, DAT/WDAT-OMS has
less delay than the SHDGP algorithm. Furthermore, as the number
of clusters increases, the number of CHs also increases. This leads
to a longer trajectory for the sink. As a result, its delay increases.
On the other hand, as justified before, increasing the number of
sinks significantly reduces the delay for a different number of
clusters.
1836
Fig. 14  Delay of sink as a function of the number of clusters in scenario 5
Fig. 15  Time complexity as a function of the number of clusters for 100
sensors (N = 100) and 300 sensors (N = 300) in scenario 6
Scenario 6: In the last scenario, we study the time complexity
of DAT-OMS and WDAT-OMS for a different number of clusters.
The results are presented in Fig. 15 for two cases of N = 100 and
N = 300. All measurements are made on a computer equipped with
an Intel core i7 2.40 GHz processor and 6 GB of memory. As the
number of clusters increases, the time complexity of both
algorithms intensifies. Increasing the number of clusters leads to an
increase in the number of CHs. This aggrandises the dimensions of
the adopted ILP optimisation model in the third phase of the
algorithms.
Unlike DAT-OMS, which uses the hop-count metric for
constructing the first-level data aggregation trees, WDAT-OMS
adopts the metric introduced in (8) to efficiently weight different
links of the network. Although a weighted data aggregation tree
provides better load-balancing in the network, it increases the time
complexity. Thus, the WDAT-OMS algorithm has more time
complexity than the DAT-OMS algorithm. Furthermore, as the
number of sensors increases, the time required for calculating the
weighted graph and constructing the first-level routing trees is also
increased. Accordingly, as shown in Fig. 15, the time complexity
of the algorithms for N = 300 is more than N = 100.
6 Conclusion
In this study, we proposed an efficient algorithm named WDAT-
OMS to jointly address the problems of CS theory, cluster-based
routing, and sink mobility in WSNs. At the first level, WDAT-
OMS organises the sensors into several clusters. In each cluster, a
weighted routing tree is used which results in fair energy
consumption by different sensors. Thus, the energy consumption
variance is reduced. At the second level, one or more mobile sinks
traverse the network to collect the aggregated data of CHs through
IET Commun., 2020, Vol. 14 Iss. 11, pp. 1826-1837
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2020
a single-hop transmission. The simulation results show that the
energy consumption of WDAT-OMS is less than CCA [14],
‘ECDA with constant sink in centre’ [13], and ‘EHDT with
constant sink in (0,0)’ [13]. By increasing the number of clusters,
each cluster covers a less number of sensors. This generally
reduces the energy consumption in the network. However, the
delay of the sink tour will be increased. We also compared the tour
delay of the proposed algorithm with SHDGP [16] for a different
number of clusters and a different number of sinks. The proposed
algorithm reduces the sink delay thanks to the use of an improved
objective function. Furthermore, the use of multiple mobile sinks
breaks down a single tour into several parallel sub-tours and
significantly reduces the network delay.
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