Calculation of an Optimum Mobile Sink Path in a Wireless Sensor Network

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a collection of spatially distributed, resourceconstrained sensor nodes, deployed within an application area, to monitor a specific event or set of events. These sensor nodes are standalone devices without access to a continuous energy source and are located either within or close to the phenomena they are observing. The nodes communicate with one or more central control point(s), generally called a sink or base station. A typical sensor node comprises a sensing unit, a small processing unit to perform simple computations, a transceiver unit to connect nodes to the network and a power unit. Some nodes are also equipped with a location finding system [1]. A WSN application contains hundreds to thousands of sensor nodes. These sensor nodes are designed for unattended operation and are generally stationary after deployment.