Ad Hoc Networks 7 (2009) 665–676

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Ad Hoc Networks
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/adhoc

A genetic algorithm based approach for energy efficient routing

in two-tiered sensor networks
Ataul Bari *, Shamsul Wazed, Arunita Jaekel, Subir Bandyopadhyay
School of Computer Science, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, ON, Canada N9B 3P4

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Higher power relay nodes can be used as cluster heads in two-tiered sensor networks to
Received 28 May 2007 achieve improved network lifetime. The relay nodes may form a network among them-
Received in revised form 16 April 2008 selves to route data towards the base station. In this model, the lifetime of a network is
Accepted 21 April 2008
determined mainly by the lifetimes of these relay nodes. An energy-aware communication
Available online 29 April 2008
strategy can greatly extend the lifetime of such networks. However, integer linear program
(ILP) formulations for optimal, energy-aware routing quickly become computationally
intractable and are not suitable for practical networks. In this paper, we have proposed
Keywords:
Sensor networks
an efficient solution, based on a genetic algorithm (GA), for scheduling the data gathering
Routing of relay nodes, which can significantly extend the lifetime of a relay node network. For
Genetic algorithm smaller networks, where the global optimum can be determined, our GA based approach
Data gathering is always able to find the optimal solution. Furthermore, our algorithm can easily handle
large networks, where it leads to significant improvements compared to traditional routing
schemes.
Ó 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction We consider a two-tiered network architecture, where

A sensor network is an interconnection of tiny, low-
cost, low-powered and multi-functional sensor nodes
[1,13,25]. Sensor nodes are usually powered by lightweight
batteries, and replacing or recharging these batteries is of-
ten not feasible. Therefore, in many cases, the lifetime of a
sensor network is over as soon as the battery power in crit-
ical node(s) is depleted [2,13,17,25]. Recently, researchers
have proposed the use of some special nodes, called relay
nodes [3–5,10,18,21,22,28,29,47] within the network, for
balanced data gathering, to achieve fault tolerance and to
extend network lifetime. The relay nodes can be used as
cluster heads in hierarchical sensor networks [4,28] and
can be provisioned with higher energy [3,5,47] as com-
pared to the sensor nodes.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 519 253 3000x4406.
E-mail addresses: bari1@uwindsor.ca (A. Bari), wazed@uwindsor.ca (S.
Wazed), arunita@uwindsor.ca (A. Jaekel), subir@uwindsor.ca (S. Bandyo-
padhyay).
higher powered relay nodes act as cluster heads and sensor
nodes transmit their data directly to their respective clus-
ter heads. However, the relay nodes are still battery oper-
ated and hence, power constrained. Total depletion of the
power of a relay node severely impacts the functionality
of the network, since all sensor nodes belonging to the
cluster of the depleted relay node will be unable to send
their data to the base station and the entire cluster be-
comes inoperative. This may also put additional load on
the surviving relay nodes, causing faster depletion of the
batteries of other relay nodes.
The lifetime of a relay node network can vary consider-
ably, with the actual routing scheme used [3–5,28]. Data
communication from relay nodes to the base station may
be either single-hop (cluster heads send data from their
own clusters directly to the base station) [24,25] or mul-
ti-hop (cluster heads transmit data from sensor nodes in
their own cluster, and also forward data from other relay
nodes, towards the base station) [28,29,31,47]. An example
of the multi-hop data transmission model (MHDTM) is
shown in Fig. 1.

1570-8705/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.adhoc.2008.04.003
666 A. Bari et al. / Ad Hoc Networks 7 (2009) 665–676
As the transmit energy dissipation increases rapidly
with the distance between the source and the destination
nodes, the lifetime of a network is usually increased by
allowing the relay nodes to form an upper-tier network
among themselves and using multi-hop routing, instead
of using the single-hop data transmission model. The
MHDTM is also the only choice for large networks, where
all relay nodes are not capable of transmitting their data
directly to the base station, due to their limited transmis-
sion range.
In this paper, we have adopted a centralized approach
for determining an energy efficient routing scheme. Such
an approach is appropriate when the exact positions of
the nodes can be predetermined, or when the nodes are
relatively stationary after deployment. The centralized ap-
proach has been adopted in a number of recent papers
[26,28,29,35,37,44,48] and can be used in different applica-
tion areas, such as habitat monitoring, environment moni-
toring, or building monitoring. In many such wireless
sensor networks (WSN) applications, the network is as-
sumed to be relatively static during normal operation
[14,18,21], i.e., there may be some initial movement of
nodes during the deployment phase, but the nodes are
mostly stationary afterwards. Our proposed scheme is
applicable for such models and is not intended for highly
dynamic topologies.
Although we have used a centralized approach, it is pos-
sible to implement a limited amount of dynamic rerouting
using our model. This is useful in situations where a relay
node depletes all its energy, or becomes faulty. In this case,
the loads on the remaining relay nodes may become highly
unbalanced, resulting in significant reduction of network
lifetime. Our genetic algorithm based approach can be
used to quickly compute a new routing schedule, based
on the current network state. This updated schedule can
be broadcast to all nodes and used until the next update.
Most papers dealing with routing in a network of relay
nodes adopt the ‘‘flow-splitting” model [18,31,38]. This
means that the flow of outgoing data from a single node,
is divided into a number of sub-flows and sent to different
destination nodes simultaneously. This approach has a
number of limitations, including the requirement by the
relay nodes to perform complex routing functions and
costly packet level power control for nodes that are
equipped with a single transmitter [28]. The flow-splitting
Direction of
data flow
Sensor node
Relay node
(cluster head)
Radio link
Base station
Fig. 1. An example of a two-tiered sensor network.
approach is also not suitable for use in conjunction with
directional antennae, which has been shown to improve
the performance of wireless sensor and ad hoc networks
[12,33,52]. Therefore, in this paper, we focus on non-flow-
splitting routing schemes, using MHDTM to extend the life-
time of the relay node network. Traditional multi-hop
schemes used for routing in sensor networks include
(i) Minimum transmission energy model (MTEM)
[24,25], where each relay node i transmits to its
nearest neighbor j, such that the relay node j is clo-
ser to the base station than the relay node i.
(ii) Minimum hop routing model (MHRM) [21,23],
where each relay node finds a path to the base sta-
tion that minimizes the number of hops.
Integer linear program (ILP) formulations to find the
optimal routing scheme, for the non-flow-splitting model,
have been proposed in the literature [3,5], and are able to
significantly extend the network lifetime, compared to
both MTEM and MHRM. But these formulations become
computationally intractable, even for moderate sized net-
works and are not suitable for large sensor networks. How-
ever, they can be important in evaluating the performance
of heuristic approaches that attempt to develop energy
efficient routing schemes. In this paper, we consider two-
tiered sensor networks and present a genetic algorithm
(GA) based approach to determine a suitable routing strat-
egy for upper-tier relay node networks. A preliminary ver-
sion of this work appeared in [49]. We first compare the
performance of our approach to optimal ILP based solu-
tions for small networks, and show, through simulations,
that our approach is able to quickly converge to the opti-
mal solution. We then show that our GA based technique
is able to achieve significant improvements (nearly dou-
bling the network lifetime), compared to traditional
schemes, for both small and large networks.
2. Review
2.1. Overview of genetic algorithm
The genetic algorithm (GA) is a technique for random-
ized search and optimization [19,20,27,41,42] and has
been applied in a wide range of studies in solving optimi-
zation problems, especially problems that are not well-
structured and interact with large numbers of possible
solutions. In this paper, we have used standard GA termi-
nology [20,27,41,42], as follows.
A GA starts with a set of the randomly generated possi-
ble solutions, called a population. Each individual solution,
in the population, is known as a chromosome or an individ-
ual. Each chromosome may be represented as a simple
string or an array of genes, which contain a part of the solu-
tion. The values of genes are called alleles. The length of
each chromosome in a population should be the same. A
fitness function is provided to assign the fitness value for
each individual. This function is based on how close an
individual is to the optimal solution – the higher the fitness
value, the closer is the solution to the optimal solution.
 A. Bari et al. / Ad Hoc Networks 7 (2009) 665–676
Two randomly selected chromosomes, known as par-
ents, can exchange genetic information in a process called
recombination or crossover, to produce two new chromo-
somes known as child or offspring. If both the parents share
a particular pattern in their chromosome, then the same
pattern will be carried over to the offsprings. To obtain a
good solution, mutation is often applied on randomly cho-
sen chromosomes, after the process of crossover. Mutation
helps to restore any lost genetic values when the popula-
tion converges too fast. Once the processes of crossover
and mutation have occurred in a population, the chromo-
somes for the next generation are selected. To ensure that
the new generation is at least as fit as the previous gener-
ation, some of the poorest performing individuals of the
current generation can be replaced by the same number
of the best performing individuals from the previous gen-
eration. This process is called elitism [15]. This entire cycle
is repeated until the stopping criterion of the algorithm is
met. The steps of a standard GA [11] are outlined in Algo-
rithm 1.
Algorithm 1: Genetic algorithm
begin
Generate an initial population
Compute the fitness of each individual
while (not stopping criterion) do
Choose parents from population.
Perform crossover to produce offsprings.
Perform mutations.
Compute fitness of each individual.
Replace the parents by the corresponding offsprings in
new generation.
end
end
2.2. Network model
For our model, we have considered a two-tiered wire-
less sensor network, with n relay nodes (acting as cluster
heads), labeled as node numbers 1; 2; 3; . . . ; n and one base
station, labeled as node number n þ 1. Let D be the set of
all sensor nodes, and Di ; 1 6 i 6 n, be the set of sensor
nodes belonging to the ith cluster, which has relay node i
as its cluster head. We assume that each sensor node be-
longs to exactly one cluster i.e., D ¼ D1 [ D2 [ . . . [ Dn
and Di \ Dj ¼ ;, for i–j.
We assume that the routing schedule is computed by
some centralized entity (e.g., the base station), which is
not power constrained. There are two possible scenarios
for determining the positions of the relay nodes and the
sensor nodes as follows:
Case (i) Nodes are either placed at specified locations
(determined by a suitable placement strategy
such as in [5,47]). In this case, routing decisions
can be computed before the deployment of the
network. The sensor nodes and the relay nodes
may be pre-configured with this information. As
soon as all the nodes are in place, the network
can start operating.
667
Case (ii) The locations of the nodes are determined using
a GPS system [21–23]. We assume that the nodes
are typically stationary after deployment, so that
the GPS system needs to be operated for a very
short period, only once at the beginning or at
very infrequent intervals, to determine the loca-
tions of the network nodes. The assignment of
sensor nodes to clusters can be handled by exist-
ing clustering techniques [4], and the average
expected data rate for each relay node calculated
accordingly (note that, if the average data gener-
ated by each sensor node is known and the dis-
tribution of the sensor nodes into the clusters is
known, this is straightforward). The data rate
need not be uniform, but can vary from node to
node. We can then compute, at some central
location, the routing decisions and broadcast
the result to the entire network. Since the com-
munication from each node as well as the com-
munication broadcast from the base station to
the nodes will be a single, small packet, the
energy dissipated for sending/receiving these
two packets is insignificant, compared to the
subsequent transmissions, and will not have
any substantial impact on the lifetime of the net-
work [21–23]. After receiving the message from
the base station, each sensor node knows which
relay node is the cluster head for itself, the relay
nodes can update their routing tables and the
network is ready to start operating.
A number of different metrics have been used in the
literature to measure the lifetime of a sensor network
[7,9,16,36,38]. In [7], the lifetime of a sensor network
has been defined as the minimum of (i) the time when
the percentage of nodes that are alive (i.e., nodes
whose batteries are not depleted) drops below a spec-
ified threshold, (ii) the time when the size of the larg-
est connected component of the network drops below a
specified threshold, and (iii) the time when the volume
covered drops below a specified threshold. The work in
[9] has focused on coverage and considered the net-
work lifetime as the period during which the entire re-
gion can be covered. In [16], the authors have provided
a comprehensive survey on the definitions of network
lifetime used in the literature and presented a general
and concise definition of the network lifetime. The
work of [36] has defined the lifetime of the network
as the lifetime of the sensor node that dies first. In
[38], a number of metrics are used to define the net-
work lifetime, e.g., N-of-N lifetime (i.e., the mission fails
if any relay/gateway node dies), K-of-N lifetime (i.e., the
mission survives if a minimum of K relay/gateway
nodes are alive) and m-in-K-of-N lifetime (i.e., the mis-
sion survives if all m supporting nodes and overall a
minimum of K relay/gateway nodes are alive) [38]. In
this paper, we have used N-of-N lifetime to compare
the results in our experimental setup. However, our ap-
proach can be used with other metrics by simply mod-
ifying the way the fitness of a chromosome is
calculated.
668 A. Bari et al. / Ad Hoc Networks 7 (2009) 665–676
2.3. Routing in sensor networks using relay nodes
The problem of routing in wireless sensor networks, un-
der the ‘‘flow-splitting” model, has been extensively cov-
ered in the literature. In [29], Hou et al. attempted to
maximize the lifetime of a sensor network by provisioning
relay and sensor nodes with additional energy. They have
formulated the problem as a mixed-integer non-linear pro-
gram and proposed a heuristic algorithm, whose perfor-
mance cannot be guaranteed. In [31], the authors
formulated the lifetime optimization problem in terms of
an integer linear program (ILP), under the flow-splitting
model. In [18], Falck et al. addressed the issue of balanced
data gathering in sensor networks and proposed a linear
program (LP) formulation that enforces some balancing
constraints in the data gathering schedule. In [21], Gupta
and Younis focused on load balanced clustering and pro-
posed a heuristic solution for the optimization problem.
Routing without flow splitting (i.e., single-path routing)
has been studied in [3,5,8,28,51]. In [28], the authors have
presented a transformation algorithm to convert a multiple
outgoing flow routing model to a single outgoing flow
routing model. In [51], the authors have investigated the
problem of maximizing the network lifetime by appropri-
ately placing nodes which are not energy constrained
(e.g., connected to a wall outlet). In [8], the authors pro-
pose a formulation for constructing minimum-energy
data-aggregation trees, for a flat architecture. In [3,5], the
authors have proposed ILP formulations to maximize the
lifetime of relay node networks.
A number of papers have demonstrated the usefulness
of a GA based approach in sensor networks [34,39,40].
The work of [40] focused on deriving an energy efficient
scheme that satisfy the required detection probability
[40] using a distributed GA. The work of [34] focused on
covering the targets, using disjoint groups of sensor nodes
(sensor covers), such that the lifetime of the network is
maximized. The coverage problem has been transformed
into the Disjoint Set Cover problem [9] and solved using
a GA. Both the above works have focused on energy effi-
cient coverage, rather than designing routing schemes for
the data communication. The work of [39] focused on find-
ing an optimal traffic distribution to improve the lifetime
of multi-sensor networks. This approach considered a
flow-splitting model for the data communication.
3. Genetic algorithm based routing
Given a collection of n relay nodes, numbered from 1 to
n, and a base station, numbered as n þ 1, along with their
locations, the objective of the GA is to find a schedule for
data gathering in a sensor network, such that the lifetime
of the network is maximized. Each period of data gathering
is referred to as a round [3,5,31], and the lifetime is mea-
sured by the number of rounds until the first relay node
runs out of power. In other words, we use the N-of-N met-
ric [38] to measure the network lifetime. We also assume
that the initial energy provisioned in each relay node is
equal. Our non-flow-splitting routing model satisfies the
following characteristics:
Characteristic (i) Each relay node receives data from
the sensor nodes belonging to its own cluster, and can
also receive data from any number of other relay nodes.
Characteristic (ii) Each relay node i transmits data to
one other node j (either another relay node or the base
station), such that node j is within the transmission
range of node i and j is either the base station, or j is a
relay node that is closer to the base station than node i.
Characteristic (iii) The base station only receives data,
there is no transmission from base station to any relay
node.
In this section, we define our chromosome representa-
tion, specify the initial population, describe the fitness
function, and the strategies for crossover and mutation
[42].
We represent the chromosome, for a specific routing
scheme, as a string of node numbers. The length of each
chromosome is always equal to the number of relay nodes.
A routing scheme for a network with 6 relay nodes, and
one base station, is shown in Fig. 2a and the corresponding
chromosome is shown in Fig. 2b. In this example, the value
of the gene in position 1 is 3, indicating that node 1 trans-
mits to node 3. Similarly, the value in position 3 is 7, indi-
cating that node 3 transmits to node 7 (base station).
3.1. Initial population and fitness function
Each chromosome in the initial population corresponds
to a valid routing scheme. In our approach, the construc-
tion of this initial routing is based on the positions of the
relay nodes, which is used by the base station to first create
a list, Ni ; 1 6 i 6 n, that contains all the one-hop neighbors
j, of i, such that the link i ! j; 8j 2 Ni can be used to route
data from i towards the destination (base station) through
j. Based on this information, possible routing schemes
(chromosomes) for the initial population are generated
using a greedy approach, by randomly picking up a next-
hop node j 2 Ni for each source node i. For our simulation
experiments, we used examples where the relay node dis-
tribution was dense enough (i.e., each node has at least one
neighbour every 2p=3 angular sector) that this simple
greedy scheme will always succeed. However, we note that
the our GA does not depend on the particular algorithm
used to generate the initial population, and any suitable
routing algorithm such as existing geographic routing
techniques, e.g., GPSR, PSGR, GeRaF, [32,50,53] can also
be used for this purpose. It is intended only to ensure the
validity of the routes that are placed in the initial popula-
Source nodes
2 1 2 3 4 5 6
1
4 3
3 4 7 7 3 7
5
7
Base 6 Destintion nodes
Station
Fig. 2. Representation of network graph as chromosome.
 A. Bari et al. / Ad Hoc Networks 7 (2009) 665–676 669

tion. It neither attempts to find a ‘‘best” route nor does it Parent A Parent B
consider the energy consumption of any node in the path. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Source 1 2 3 4 5 6
The following informal analysis shows that the search
space for our problem is enormous. On an average, if each 3 4 7 7 3 7 Destintion 7
5 3 4 6 7
node has d valid one-hop neighbors, then the number of
n
feasible routings for a network with n nodes is Oðd Þ. In or- Crossover point Crossover point
der to select a ‘‘good” energy efficient routing scheme,
Child A Child B
from such a large number of possible solutions, within a
1 2 3 4 5 6 Source 1 2 3 4 5 6
reasonable amount of time, a heuristic search technique,
such as GA, is needed.
After generating each new individual, we need to eval- 3 4 7 7 6 7 Destintion 5 3 4 7 3 7
uate its fitness value. We compute the fitness value as the
lifetime of the network, represented by the total number of Fig. 3. Example of single point crossover.
rounds, until the first relay node runs out of battery power
[3]. shows an example of k-point crossover, where k ¼ 1 (also
As in [3], the value of the fitness function for an individ- known as single point crossover), with two parent chromo-
ual is computed as somes, Parent A and Parent B, in a network with 6 relay
nodes (numbered 1; . . . ; 6) and a base station (numbered
Einitial
Lnet ¼ ð1Þ 7). After the crossover, two new child chromosomes, Child
Emax C and Child D, are generated.
where Lnet is the network lifetime in terms of rounds and
Einitial is the initial energy of a relay node. We assume that 3.3. Mutation
the value of Einitial is known beforehand and is the same for
all relay nodes. Emax is the maximum energy dissipated by Mutation is usually applied after the process of cross-
any relay node in the individual, for the routing scheme de- over, to improve the fitness value of an individual. To per-
fined by the chromosome, in one round of data gathering. form the mutation over an individual, instead of randomly
We compute the total transmit energy, ET i ðbti ; di;j Þ, dissi- selecting a gene, as in standard GA, we select the node, say
pated in a round by each relay node i; 1 6 i 6 n, to transmit node i, in the chromosome, which dissipates the maximum
bti amount of data to another node (either a relay node or energy due to the receiving and/or transmitting of its data.
the base station) j; 1 6 j 6 n þ 1, using the following first We denote node i as the critical node as it decides the life-
order radio model [25] time of the network. The purpose of selecting node i for
mutation is to reduce the total energy dissipation by the
m node and hence, to increase the network lifetime. This
ET i ðbti ; di;j Þ ¼ a2 bti þ bbti di;j ð2Þ
can be done

where di;j is the Euclidian distance between node i and j, a2
is the transmit energy coefficient, b is the amplifier coeffi-
cient and m is the path loss exponent, 2 6 m 6 4. Similarly,
the receive energy, ERi ðbri Þ, dissipated in a round by each
relay node i; 1 6 i 6 n, is defined as
ERi ðbri Þ ¼ a1 bri
where bri is the number of bits received by relay node i in a
round and a1 is the receive energy coefficient.
Hence, we compute Ei , the total energy dissipated by
each relay node i for one round of data gathering as
Ei ¼ ET i þ ERi . So, our metric for energy dissipation takes
into consideration both the transmit energy and the re-
ceive energy. Finally, we compute Emax ¼ maxðEi ; 8i; 1 6
i 6 nÞ.
3.2. Selection and crossover
Selection of individuals is carried out using the Rou-
lette-Wheel selection method [20,27], where the probabil-
ity of being selected increases with the fitness value of the
individual chromosome.
To produce new offsprings from the selected parents,
we have randomly used the uniform crossover (with swap-
ping probability 0.5) or k-point crossover (k = 1, 2, or 3, se-
lected randomly) for each crossover operation [20]. Fig. 3
 either by replacing edge i ! j from critical node i to edge
i ! k where k is randomly chosen from nodes which are
closer to node i than j and also closer to the base station
than i, or
 by diverting some incoming flow away from node i by
ð3Þ randomly deleting an existing edge u ! i, and adding
an edge u ! v to some node v which is closer to the base
station than u.
Fig. 4 shows a portion of a network where i is the critical
node and B is the base station. As shown in Fig. 4a, chang-
ing the destination node for the critical node i, from j to k
should be done in a way such that di;k < di;j and dk;B < di;B ,
q u q u
p p
v v
i i
j k j k
B B
Fig. 4. Redistribution of load on critical node as mutation.
670 A. Bari et al. / Ad Hoc Networks 7 (2009) 665–676
where dx;y is the Euclidean distance from node x to node y.
Similarly, in Fig. 4b, we reduce the load on the critical node
i, by diverting the traffic from node u, so that it is sent to
node v, instead of node i. The alternate destination node
v should be selected such that dv;B < du;B and v lies within
the transmission range of u.
3.4. Validity of the crossover and the mutation operations
It is convenient to construct a directed graph G ¼ ðV; EÞ
where V is a set consisting of all relay nodes and the base
station. Set E consists of edges ði ! j j i; j 2 VÞ where i is a
relay node and j is either the base station or is a relay node
such that j is closer to the base station than node i and
within the transmission range of i. The base station has
no outgoing edge and all other nodes have one or more
edges to some other nodes (relay nodes or the base station)
as described in characteristic (ii). The following properties
of the graph G are useful in establishing the validity of the
crossover mechanism:
Property (i) The graph G cannot contain a cycle since the
existence of an edge x ! y means that node y is strictly
closer to the base station than x.
Property (ii) All paths in graph G, starting from any
node x ultimately terminate at the base station.
Property (iii) There is a one-to-one correspondence
between a chromosome and a subgraph G of graph G
such that the set of nodes of subgraph G is V and each
node in G, except the base station, has exactly one edge
to some other node in G. A graph where the outdegree
of each node is at most 1 has been called a outdegree-1
graph (OD1G) in [43].
Property (iv) If there are two OD1G subgraphs G1 and
G2 of graph G representing two chromosomes and there
is a path P 1 (P 2 ) from node i to node j (node j to node k)
in G1 (G2 ) then the concatenation of paths P1 and P2
gives a cycle-free path in G from node i to node k.
Crossover to create two child chromosomes from two
parent chromosomes corresponds to the process of
 selecting two OD1G subgraphs GParent 1 and GParent 2 of
graph G representing the two parent chromosomes,
 identifying a subset V 1 of V,
 forming a graph GChild 1 (GChild 2 ) with the edges for nodes
in V 1 taken from edges in GParent 1 (GParent 2 ) and the edges
for nodes in V  V 1 taken from edges in GParent 2 (GParent 1 ).
It is easy to see that the graph GChild 1 is a OD1G graph
with every node except the base station having exactly 1
outgoing edge.
Theorem 1. In the OD1G graph GChild 1 ðGChild 2 Þ resulting
from a crossover operation, each node corresponding to a
relay node, has a path to the base station.
Proof. Let x be a relay node that is in set V 1 . Starting from
node x, if we follow the edges that appear in GParent 1 , we
ultimately reach either the base station or a relay node y
in V 1 such that the edge from y in GParent 1 is to a node z
in set V  V 1 . In the former case, we are done. In the latter
case, z is a node that is strictly closer to the base station
compared to x. From node z, we now have to follow the
outgoing edges of GParent 2 until we again either reach the
base station or we reach a node p such that the outgoing
edge from p in GParent 2 is to a node q in set V 1 . By virtue
of property (iii), there is no cycle and node q is closer to
the base station compared to either x or z. Each time we
are going from a node in set V 1 to a node in set V  V 1 or
vice-versa we are going closer to the base station and never
encountering the same relay node again. Since there are a
finite number of relay nodes, it must be always possible to
reach the base station. h
The mutation operation deletes one edge, say x ! y,
from some node x and adds an edge x ! z to some other
node z which is either the base station or a node that is clo-
ser to the base station compared to x. The mutation scheme
clearly ensures that the graph after mutation is a OD1G
graph with every node except the base station having ex-
actly 1 outgoing edge. The path from node z to the base sta-
tion only includes nodes which are all closer to the base
station than x. A node p that earlier used node x as an inter-
mediate node in the path from p to the base station will
continue to use x as an intermediate node in its path to
the base station but will use the edge x ! z rather than
x ! y. Such a path also has no cycles. This means that
our crossover and mutation scheme guarantee to generate
valid solutions only.
Example. We assume, in our discussions that the initial
population consists of valid chromosomes, so that accord-
ing to characteristic (ii), each node in the chromosome
either transmits directly to the base station or to another
node (within its transmission range) which is closer to the
base station. This means that the node(s) closest to the
base station must transmit directly to the base station in all
valid solutions.
If we consider two parent chromosomes, Parent A and
Parent B, as shown in Fig. 5. We note that both of these
chromosomes cannot be valid simultaneously, for the fol-
lowing reason. In Parent A, the predecessors of node 7
(the base station) are node 3 and node 4. This means that
at least one of 3 or 4 must be closest to the base station
and therefore must transmit directly to the base station
in all valid chromosomes (assuming Parent A is valid).
However, this is not the case in Parent B. So, both parent
A and parent B cannot be valid simultaneously.
3.5. Dynamic reconfiguration of the data communication
scheme
The fitness function presented in Eq. (1) assumes that
all relay nodes have the same energy restrictions. How-
ever, this assumption may not hold in cases where a heter-
ogenous set of relay nodes is used. Also, the energy
dissipation by different relay nodes under a fixed routing
scheme is usually different. Therefore, it is natural that,
after the network has been operational for some time, dif-
ferent relay nodes will end up with different levels of resid-
ual energy, even when all relay nodes were deployed with
 A. Bari et al. / Ad Hoc Networks 7 (2009) 665–676
Parent A
1 2 3 4 5 6
3 4 7 7 3 5
Crossover point
Fig. 5. Example of invalid chromosomes.
same initial energy. The residual energy may also vary due
to the variation of the network conditions, e.g., when some
nodes fail. We can prolong the lifetime of a network by
computing a new routing schedule that takes into account
the currently available nodes and their residual energy, at
some point of time after the initial deployment of the net-
work. This can easily be done by modifying our initial fit-
ness function, given in Eq. (1), as follows:
Lnet ¼ minðLi ; 8i; 1 6 i 6 nÞ:
where Lnet is the network lifetime in terms of rounds as be-
fore, and the lifetime Li ; 8i; 1 6 i 6 n, in terms of rounds, for
each relay node i is computed as follows:
Eiavailable
Li ¼
Ei
Here, Eiavailable is the current available energy of relay node i,
and Ei is the energy dissipated by the relay node i, for the
routing scheme defined by the chromosome, in one round
of data gathering.
Such re-computation of the data gathering schedule can
be performed multiple times at predetermined intervals, or
can be triggered by a change in network conditions (e.g.
node failure). Alternately, each relay node may periodically
broadcast the available residual energy, which can be used
to compute the new routes and broadcast only if it benefits
the network. Failed or depleted nodes can be removed
from the computation. Lifetime improvement after each
rescheduling contributes to the total lifetime of the net-
work. The rescheduling can be performed until the nodes
drain out of power or no significant improvement on the
lifetime can be achieved.
4. Experimental results
For our experiments, we have assumed that the com-
munication energy dissipation is based on the first order
radio model, as discussed in Section 3.
(1) The values for the constants are the same as in [25],
as follows:
(a) a1 ¼ a2 ¼ 50 nJ=bit,
2
(b) b ¼ 100 pJ=bit=m and
(c) the path loss exponent, m, varied from 2 to
6.
(2) The range of each sensor (relay) node is 40 m
(200 m), as in [47], and
(3) the initial energy of each relay node is 5 J, as in
[47].
671
Parent B
Source 1 2 3 4 5 6
Destintion 5 3 4 6 6 7
Crossover point
We have assumed that the average data generation rate
of the sensor nodes and the allocation of sensor nodes to
the clusters are known. Using this information, the average
load on each relay node due to the data generated by the
sensor nodes belonging to its own cluster is computed
beforehand.
The performance of the genetic algorithm is greatly af-
fected by a number of factors, such as the population size,
ð4Þ the rate of crossover and mutation, and the method of
replacement. A small population size may lead to prema-
ture convergence before reaching an acceptable solution.
On the other hand, if the population size is too large, it
leads to unnecessary computations [42]. Similarly, as sta-
ted in [19], if the mutation rate is set too low, the GA will
ð5Þ converge earlier before the optimal solution is found, and
if it is too high, it may cause stability problem in the pop-
ulation. The rate of crossover is closely related to the rate
of mutation and affects the performance of GA in a similar
fashion [19]. We have run a number of experiments with
different values of these parameters to determine the
optimal set for each of network size. In our experiments,
we have observed that increasing the crossover (and the
mutation) rate allows the GA to reach the optimal solu-
tion faster. Initial selection is performed by selecting indi-
viduals having fitness values that are above a
predetermined threshold. We have also used an elitist
[15] approach, where about 10% of the most promising
individuals from the current generation are allowed to
proceed to the next generation. Although we allow the
GA to run for a maximum of 100 generations, we have ob-
served that the best solution is typically found within 20
generations.
4.1. Comparison for the achieved lifetime
As pointed out in [40], due to the stochastic nature and
the complexity of the GA model, it is difficult to derive ana-
lytical models. Therefore, results are typically validated
using extensive simulations. We have also adopted this ap-
proach in this paper.
The placement of relay nodes is an important issue
and has been shown to be a difficult problem [45,46].
A number of relay node placement strategies have been
proposed in the literature, such as in [5,47]. Our ap-
proach does not depend on the choice of a particular
placement scheme and can be used in conjunction with
any suitable scheme. The experiments were run several
times with two different strategies for relay node
placement:
672 A. Bari et al. / Ad Hoc Networks 7 (2009) 665–676

(i) placed at predetermined grid points, as outlined in 4000

[5], and
3500
(ii) locations selected based on sensor node
distributions. 3000
Genetic Algorithm
MTEM

Lifetimes in Rounds
MHRM

In either case, the placement ensures that all sensor 2500

nodes in the network are covered by the set of relay nodes.
2000
For the second case, we used the placement scheme out-
lined in [6], but any other appropriate placement strategy 1500
could have been used as well. We have simulated our
1000
method on upper-tier relay node networks of different
sizes. The number of sensor nodes was varied from 100 500
nodes to over 3000 nodes.
For the first set of experiments, we have varied the 0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
number of relay nodes from 10 to 60, and compared the Network Size (# of Relay Nodes)
achieved lifetime with those obtained using MHRM and
MTEM. We have measured the lifetime of the network, as Fig. 7. Comparison of the lifetime achieved by different methods, when
the number of rounds, until the first relay node runs out base station is located at the corner and the data rate is fixed.

of battery power. The results, shown in Fig. 6, indicate that

our approach is able to improve network lifetime by al-
4500
most 200% compared to traditional routing schemes. For
smaller networks (up to 18 relay nodes), we were able to 4000
determine the optimal solution, using an ILP [3]. We have
3500 Genetic Algorithm
observed that, using GA, we were able to achieve the opti- MTEM
Lifetimes in Rounds
MHRM
mal lifetime with substantially less amount of time. 3000
For the second set of experiments, we have varied the
2500
number of relay nodes from 10 to 85. In this case, we have
assumed that each cluster generates data at a fixed rate 2000
(1000 bits/round). With this assumption, we measured 1500
the lifetime for two cases:
1000
(i) with the base station at the lower left corner of the 500
sensing area, and
(ii) with the base station located at the center of the 0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
sensing area. Network Size (# of Relay Nodes)

We have compared the lifetimes with those obtained Fig. 8. Comparison of the lifetime achieved by different methods, when
base station is located at the center and the data rate is fixed.
using MHRM and MTEM, for both cases. Fig. 7 (Fig. 8) com-
pares the lifetimes achieved by the different methods, with
the base station placed at the corner (center) of the
network. For the third set of experiments, we also have varied the
number of relay nodes from 10 to 85. But In this case, we
have assumed that each cluster generates data at a random
4000 rate (500–2000 bits/round). As in the previous set of exper-
MTEM iments, we considered two different positions of the base
3500 MHRM
Genetic Algorithm station, and compared the achieved lifetimes with those
3000 obtained using MHRM and MTEM. Figs. 9 (Fig. 10) shows
the lifetimes achieved by the different methods with the
Lifetime in Rounds

2500 base station placed at the corner (center) of the network.

When the base station is located at the corner (center),
2000
we have calculated, with a confidence interval of 95%, that
1500 our GA based approach extends the network lifetime by
200–460% (204–260%), compared to traditional MTEM
1000 and MHRM routing schemes.
Finally, we have tested our method on a dense, large
500
network. The sensing area was taken as 480 m  480 m,
0 which included 312 relay nodes. The base station was
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 placed at the (0, 0) coordinate. The rate for receiving data
Network Size (# of Relay Nodes)
for each relay node was randomly set between 500 and
Fig. 6. Comparison of the lifetime achieved by GA solutions to that using 1500 bits/round, and the maximum number of iterations
conventional methods. was set to 300. Comparing the network lifetimes obtained
 A. Bari et al. / Ad Hoc Networks 7 (2009) 665–676 673

4500 6
10

4000
5
10
3500
Genetic Algorithm GA Time

Solution Time in sec.

Lifetimes in Rounds

MTEM CPLEX Time

3000 4
MHRM 10

2500
3
10
2000

1500 2
10

1000
1
10
500

0 0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 10
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Network Size (# of Relay Nodes) Network Size (# of Relay Nodes)
Fig. 9. Comparison of the lifetime achieved by different methods, when Fig. 11. Time required by the ILP and GA based approach for different size
base station is located at a corner and the data rate is random. networks.

5000

4500 exponent, m, and varied it from m ¼ 3 to m ¼ 6 (up from

4000
m ¼ 2, which was used in the experiments presented in
Genetic Algorithm
MTEM the previous sections). We also varied the size of the net-
Lifetimes in Rounds

3500 MHRM
works from 11 to 20 relay nodes. The number of sensor
3000 nodes were varied according the number of relay nodes,
2500
in order to keep the node density approximately the same,
for all cases. We have compared the lifetime of the network
2000
achieved by this genetic algorithm approach to MTEM and
1500 Direct Transmission Energy Model (DTEM), where each re-
1000 lay node transmits data directly to the base station [25].
The results of the experiments, with the path loss expo-
500
nent, m ¼ 3; 4 and 6 are shown in Figs. 12–14, respectively.
0 As before, we have measured the lifetime in terms of the
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Network Size (# of Relay Nodes)
number of rounds before the first relay node runs out of
battery powers. The figures indicate that, with higher val-
Fig. 10. Comparison of the lifetime achieved by different methods, when ues of m, the lifetimes of the networks suffer considerable
base station is located at the center and the data rate is random. reduction under DTEM, as compared to the other two
schemes. Although the GA approach always performs bet-

by GA with MHRM and MTEM, in this network, we have

found that the improvement is more than 150% over these
two models. 4
x 10
2
4.2. Comparison of execution times 1.8
Genetic Algorithm
Direct Transmission
1.6
For smaller networks (up to 20 relay nodes), we were Minimum Transmission
Lifetimes in Rounds

able to determine the optimal solution, using an ILP [3]. 1.4

We were able to achieve the same optimal lifetime using 1.2
GA, but required much less time. For example, for a 18-
1
node network, our GA found the optimal solution in less
than 25 seconds, whereas the ILP in [3] required several 0.8
hours, using the solver ilog CPLEX [30]. The execution time 0.6
required by both methods for different network size is
0.4
shown in Fig. 11.
0.2
4.3. Comparison of the lifetimes in lossy environments 0
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Network Size (# of Relay Nodes)
Finally, we have studied the impact of a lossy environ-
ment on the lifetime of a sensor network. To simulate a Fig. 12. Comparison of the lifetime achieved by different methods in
lossy environment, we increased the value of the path loss lossy environments, when the path loss exponent, m ¼ 3.
674 A. Bari et al. / Ad Hoc Networks 7 (2009) 665–676

10000 conventional routing strategies, such as MTEM and MHRM.

9000
Experimental results clearly demonstrate that our ap-
Genetic Algorithm proach can significantly extend the lifetime of the network
8000 Direct Transmission
Minimum Transmission (by nearly 200% on average), compared to traditional rout-
Lifetimes in Rounds

7000 ing schemes that do not consider energy dissipation of the

6000 nodes. We are currently investigating the implementation
of the approach in a distributed manner and enhancing the
5000
GA for solving the combined problem of clustering and
4000 routing.
3000
Acknowledgement
2000

1000 The work of A. Jaekel and S. Bandyopadhyay have been

0 supported by research grants from the Natural Sciences
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
Network Size (# of Relay Nodes)

Fig. 13. Comparison of the lifetime achieved by different methods in

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Ataul Bari obtained his B. Engg. degree in
mechanical engineering from the University
of Rajshahi (Engg. College), Bangladesh. He
received his BCS[H] and M.Sc. from the Uni-
versity of Windsor in 2004 and 2006 respec-
tively. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in the
area of energy efficient protocols for wireless
sensor networks. His other research interests
include optical networks and bioinformatics.
Shamsul Wazed completed his BCS[H] and
M.Sc. from the University of Windsor in 2004
and 2007 respectively. He is currently work-
ing in a software development company in
the USA.
676 A. Bari et al. / Ad Hoc Networks 7 (2009) 665–676

Subir Bandyopadhyay received the B.Sc, the

Arunita Jaekel obtained her B.Engg. degree in
B.Tech., the M.Tech. and the Ph.D. degree from
electronics and telecommunications engi-
Calcutta University and the M. Math degree
neering from Jadavpur University, India. She
from the University of Waterloo. He has
received her M.Sc. and Ph.D. degree in elec-
taught at the Calcutta University and the
trical engineering from University of Windsor,
Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta, India
Canada. She has been with the School of
and the University of Lethbridge in Alberta,
Computer Science at University of Windsor
Canada. Since 1984 he has been at the School
since 1995, where she is currently an associ-
of Computer Science at the University of
ate professor. Her research interests include
Windsor in Ontario, Canada, where currently
optical networks, survivable topology design
he is a professor. His research interests
and wireless sensor networks.
include Optical Networks and Sensor
Networks.