A grid-based joint routing and charging algorithm for industrial wireless rechargeable sensor networks

Wireless charging techniques provide a more flexible and promising way to solve the energy constraint problem in industrial wireless rechargeable sensor networks (IWRSNs). Although considerable research has been done on wireless charging algorithms, most of it only focuses on passively replenishing nodes having insufficient energy. In this paper, we propose a grid-based joint routing and charging algorithm for IWRSNs to solve the charging problem in a proactive way. On the one hand, a new routing protocol is designed according to charging characteristics of the charger to achieve local energy balance. On the other hand, different charging times are allocated at different charging points on the basis of energy consumption caused by the routing process to achieve global energy balance. Simulation results verify superiority of our proposed algorithm in solving the balancing energy problem and improving survival rates of nodes.