A Review Study of the Optimized Cluster Head Placement of Transmit-Only Nodes in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) with transmit-only (TO) nodes are gaining increased popularity, in particular, in applications requiring heavy deployment of sensor nodes in harsh and inaccessible environments. The data collected by the members of the WSN is relayed to a nearby base station (BS) via a cluster-head (CH). Since the nodes are usually battery-limited, it is important to optimize the location of the CH in the sensing environment to prolong the lifetime of the entire network. In this paper, we describe this problem using a general energy model and review the main articles that discuss the energy optimization problem in WSNs and summarize their important results, in addition to the basic working principles of the different widely used energy-optimization algorithms.