Relay Node Deployment in Roadside Traffic Detection System Based on Improved Genetic Algorithm

In a wireless sensor network system for roadside traffic detection, the deployment of relay nodes is a key issue. This work proposes an enhanced genetic algorithm to solve the relay node placement problem, ensuring full sensor node coverage while minimizing the number of relay nodes and optimizing coverage redundancy. The proposed algorithm incorporates various strategies to improve convergence speed during population initialization, combining heuristics and randomization. A novel repair operation efficiently transforms infeasible solutions into feasible ones, guiding the algorithm in a thorough exploration of the solution space. One of the algorithm’s standout features is an adaptive multi-bit mutation strategy that enhances its ability to escape local optima during optimization. The experimental results show that the performance of our algorithm is superior to algorithms such as NSGA-II, Greedy Integrated GA, Classic GA, and Harizan’s GA.