An Energy Efficient Charging Scheme for UAV-aided Wireless Sensor Networks

For wireless rechargeable sensor networks, a charging strategy using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is proposed. Firstly, sensor nodes are clustered by k-means clustering algorithm. The center of the cluster is the hovering position of UAV. The order of clusters is then optimized so that the flight time is minimized. Therefore, energy efficiency of UAV is maximized on the condition that all sensor nodes are alive. Finally, the proposed algorithm is compared with two existing advanced charging scheduling algorithms. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm not only satisfies the maximization of energy efficiency, but also guarantees that sensor nodes does not die, thus ensuring the reliability of the wireless sensor networks.