Dominating Sets Construction in RF-based Battery-free Sensor Networks with Full Coverage Guarantee

Abstract

A new network architecture, named as RF-based battery-free sensor network, was proposed in recent years to overcome the lifetime limitation of traditional wireless sensor networks. In an RF-based battery-free sensor network, the battery-free nodes equip no battery and can be recharged by RF-signals. The Dominating Set (DS) is a key method to maintain the coverage of traditional WSNs, and it can be also adopted in the RF-based battery-free sensor networks. However, considering the specific features of RF-based battery-free sensor networks, the DS construction is totally different from that in traditional WSNs. Thus, the problem of constructing DS in a battery-free sensor network is deeply investigated in this article. The NP-Hardness of such problem is proved. Four approximation algorithms are proposed to deal with the snapshot and continuous DS construction requirements, respectively. The approximation ratios of these four algorithms have been analyzed, and the theoretical results show that all these four algorithms are effective. Furthermore, the electromagnetic interference problem in the RF-based battery-free sensor network is considered and defined. An approximated algorithm is proposed to solve such problem. Finally, extensive simulations are carried out. The experimental results verify that the proposed algorithms have high performance in terms of accuracy and efficiency.