Analysis of the rules for constructing a flight trajectory of a communication aerial platform for data collection from nodes of a wireless sensor network.

Abstract

To collect monitoring data from the nodes of wireless sensor networks with a disconnected topology, it is proposed to use a communication aerial platform (CA), which is built on the basis of an unmanned aerial vehicle. During the flight, the CA forms temporary local radio networks and performs the role of an air gateway for collecting data from individual nodes and main nodes in connected network fragments. The efficiency of the data collection process depends on the characteristics of the network, the methods (rules) of constructing the trajectory of the CA, the number and location of points (intervals) of data exchange, etc. The article assesses the effectiveness of the application of various production rules for building the trajectory of a CA to collect data from network nodes to achieve certain target functions: minimizing the time of data collection, maximizing the time of network operation. The paper formulates the task of finding a flight path and collecting CA data from nodes as the task of finding the shortest trajectory of the movement of the CA coverage area from the initial to the end point of the flight, which provides coverage of all nodes (clusters on the area) at the minimum distance of the CA exchange with the nodes. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the application of the flight path construction rules and data collection, a corresponding simulation model was developed. The input data of the simulation are the characteristics of the network, nodes and communication aerial platform, methods (rules) of managing the data collection process. The simulation model provides an opportunity to obtain dependences of efficiency indicators (data collection time, battery energy consumption, network operation time) on a set of flight path construction rules and CA data collection with different input data. The results of simulated modeling of the application of a set (base) of rules proved the possibility of reducing the time of data collection by up to 20% or increasing the time of network operation by up to 15% compared to existing solutions.