Energy-Efficient Monitor Deployment in Collaborative Distributed Setting

Monitoring large supply networks can be efficiently performed by employing active radio-frequency identification (a-RFID) sensors. Relay nodes collect and process workflow information from the sensors. The knowledge derived from the collected information is periodically communicated to monitors using onboard energy sources. Energy can be saved by communicating with closer monitors. In this setup, multiple decision makers with their own deployment budget collaborate to deploy monitors for minimizing energy consumption of the relay nodes. The contribution of this paper is threefold. It elaborates a mathematical model for distributed monitor deployment in budget-constrained supply-chain networks, it proposes a heuristic technique to find near-optimal allocation of monitors in tractable manner, and it illustrates a collaborative procedure to jointly minimize energy consumption along with a fair sharing of total deployment cost among multiple decision makers. The approach is presented through a case study. In addition, benchmark results are provided for a number of problem instances.