Constraint programming for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

In recent years, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have grown rapidly and have had a substantial impact in many applications. A WSN is a network that consists of interconnected autonomous nodes that monitor physical and environmental conditions, such as temperature, humidity, pollution, etc. If required, nodes in a WSN can perform actions to affect the environment.WSNs present an interesting and challenging field of research due to the distributed nature of the network and the limited resources of the nodes. It is necessary for a node in a WSN to be small to enable easy deployment in an environment and consume as little energy as possible to prolong its battery lifetime. There are many challenges in WSNs, such as programming a large number of nodes, designing communication protocols, achieving energy efficiency, respecting limited bandwidth, and operating with limited memory. WSNs are further constrained due to the deployment of the nodes in indoor and outdoor environments and obstacles in the environment.In this dissertation, we study some of the fundamental optimisation problems related to the programming, coverage, mobility, data collection, and data loss of WSNs, modelled as standalone optimisation problems or as optimisation problems integrated with protocol design. Our proposed solution methods come from various fields of research including constraint programming, integer linear programming, heuristic-based algorithms, and data inference techniques. I would like to say many thanks to Roland Bol and Ivan Christoff for accepting me to MSc studies at Uppsala University, which led to this PhD. Your decision brought me on a very long and joyful journey: without it, I would not have been here today. KeywordsI had the special opportunity to see the ASTRA group on constraint programming grow larger with new PhD students and post-doc fellows throughout my PhD. I enjoyed working at the ASTRA group. Especially my appreciation goes to Jun He, Joseph Scott, Maria Andreina Francisco Rodriguez, and JeanNoël Monette, who always supported me with their thoughts and constructive discussions, and have been great friends for me. I have also always looked forward to your seminars with delicious cakes and cookies. Many thanks to Prof. Christian Schulte, Guido Tack, Mats Carlsson for their discussions and many constructive comments during my seminars and on my publications.I would like to specially thank all members of my PhD parent project (ProFuN). Thank you for your constructive suggestions and discussions during the seminars.I have made many wonderful friends during my PhD, friends who always stood by my side and supported me. There are many names to mention and I wish I could name everyone here, but I believe you know who you are and you know how much I appreciate your precious friendship. Thank you so much for being my friends and helping me to improve. There has been a very difficult time during my PhD when my cat Niuniu had an extremely harsh accident. I must specifically thank Edith Ngai, Palle Raabjerg, Ryoko Asai, and V...