Enhancing network lifespan in wireless sensor networks using deep learning based Graph Neural Network

Inadequate energy of sensors is one of the most significant challenges in the development of a reliable wireless sensor network (WSN) that can withstand the demands of growing WSN applications. Implementing a sleep-wake scheduling scheme while assigning data collection and sensing chores to a dominant group of awake sensors while all other nodes are in a sleep state seems to be a potential way for preserving the energy of these sensor nodes. When the starting energy of the nodes changes from one node to another, this issue becomes more difficult to solve. The notion of a dominant set-in graph has been used in a variety of situations. The search for the smallest dominant set in a big graph might be time-consuming. Specifically, we address two issues: first, identifying the smallest possible dominant set, and second, extending the network lifespan by saving the energy of the sensors. To overcome the first problem, we design and develop a deep learning-based Graph Neural Network (DL-GNN). The GNN training method and back-propagation approach were used to train a GNN consisting of three networks such as transition network, bias network, and output network, to determine the minimal dominant set in the created graph. As a second step, we proposed a hybrid fixed-variant search (HFVS) method that considers minimal dominant sets as input and improves overall network lifespan by swapping nodes of minimal dominating sets. We prepared simulated networks with various network configurations and modeled different WSNs as undirected graphs. To get better convergence, the different values of state vector dimensions of the input vectors are investigated. When the state vector dimension is 3 or 4, minimum dominant set is recognized with high accuracy. The paper also presents comparative analyses between the proposed HFVS algorithm and other existing algorithms for extending network lifespan and discusses the trade-offs that exist between them. Lifespan of wireless sensor network, which is based on the dominant set method, is greatly increased by the techniques we have proposed. (c) 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.