An improved free search approach for energy optimization in wireless sensor networks

In order to maximize the lifetime of a wireless sensor network (WSN), an improved free search (FS) approach, which is called free search with double populations (FSDP), is proposed in this paper. FSDP is a population-based approach which is applied to optimize the energy consumption of a wireless sensor network. A circular network model is adopted and FSDP obtains the optimal solution by finding an optimal transmission path from the nodes of outer girdle bands to the sink node. Simulation results obtained by FSDP show the effectiveness of the proposed optimization approach.