Data Collection Schemes for Animal Monitoring Using WSNs-Assisted by UAVs: WSNs-Oriented or UAV-Oriented

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been used for monitoring animals but when their habitats have difficult access and are areas of a large expanse, remote monitoring by classic techniques becomes a difficult task. The use of traditional WSNs requires a restrictive number of hops in a multi-hoping routing scheme, traveling long distances to the sink node where data is stored by nodes and UAVs are used to collect data by visiting each node. However, the use of UAVs is not straightforward since the energy balance between the WSN and UAV has to be carefully calibrated. Building on this, we propose two data collection schemes in clustered based WSNs: (1) WSN oriented and (2) UAV oriented. In the former, nodes within each cluster member (CM), send information to their cluster head (CH) and for recollection, the UAV visits all CHs. As the UAV visits many CHs the flight time is increased. In the latter, all CHs send data from their CMs to a sink node, hence, the UAV only visits this node, reducing the flying time but with a higher system energy cost. To find the most suitable scheme for different monitoring conditions in terms of the average energy consumption and the buffer capacity of the system, we develop a mathematical model that considers both the dynamics of the WSN along with the UAV.