Optimization of Wireless Sensor Nodes Placement Using Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm for Fire Detection

Abstract

The development in wireless communications and electronics brought about unprecedented advancement in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). WSN consists of a group of sensor nodes that can communicate with each other through wireless medium and have at least a sink node where the data will be sent to. One important problem in implementing a WSN is the position of the nodes that will meet the design specifications such as coverage and connectivity. Hence, it is important that in sensor nodes deployment strategies, consideration should be given to the sensing range of sensors and how well the sensors can communicate with each other. Coverage and Connectivity are two important performance metrics in wireless sensor networks that show how a sensor field is monitored by the deployed wireless sensor nodes. Optimizing the position of sensor nodes placement can help in the realization of objective function of generating high throughput, low latency and fast convergence rate. They are quite a number of optimization algorithms that can be used to achieve this but the choice of an optimization algorithm depends on its suitability for the task when compared to others. Particle swarm optimization algorithm was used for this work because it is easy to implement, makes use of few parameters, fast convergence and better solution. Also, dijkstra shortest path algorithm was used in routing data through the shortest path to the sink.