Optimized Wireless Visual Sensor Networks for Guaranteed Target Coverage With Maximum Lifetime and Least Data Delivery Latency

In wireless visual sensor networks (WVSNs), feature aggregation instead of image collection can reduce network traffic, and thus, network lifetime can be prolonged, and network delay can be shortened. However, it requires the deployment of a number of processing nodes (PNs) near camera nodes (CNs) for image feature extraction. In this article, we investigate how to schedule such a WVSN to maximize network lifetime and minimize network delay while ensuring that each target is covered, and the features of each image are extracted and sent to a base station (BS). This problem requires the optimal arrangement of cover sets, and each cover set involves the joint optimization of the selection of sensing nodes and their working directions, image offloading, and image feature data routing. We formulate it as a mixed integer nonlinear program and propose a maximum-lifetime and minimum-delay network scheduling algorithm to solve it. Extensive simulation results show that this algorithm is more promising than two baseline algorithms.