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Solar energy harvesting has been presented as a key solution to alleviate the lifespan problem of conventional battery-based wireless sensor networks, but it does not address the problem of uneven energy consumption across the network. In conventional sensor networks with a stationary sink node, the nodes around the sink node consume more energy than other nodes, which is known as the hotspot problem. In recent studies, mobile sink technology has been proved to be an effective solution to the problem, where a mobile sink visits sensor nodes and collects data. To reduce the energy consumption of the mobile sink, a subset of sensor nodes are designated as anchor nodes to collect data for a certain period, and the mobile sink visits only such anchor nodes. However, even with these approaches, small hotspots can still be formed near those anchor nodes, hence it is crucial to optimize the selection and management of anchor nodes. This study aims to propose a dual line-based anchor node selection scheme tailored to efficiently solve the hotspot problem in mobile sink-based solar-powered wireless sensor networks. The proposed scheme designates the areas, in which some nodes can be chosen as anchor nodes, in the form of two lines. This dual line-based anchor selection algorithm effectively operates for the best use of the solar energy harvested by each node in a balanced manner. The experimental results confirm that the proposed scheme minimizes hotspots in the network, reduces the blackout time of nodes, and improves the data collection rate. • The proposed scheme is designed for solar powered WSNs operating with a mobile sink. • The proposed scheme can maximize the utilization of harvested energy at each node. • The proposed scheme can alleviate the hotspot problem significantly. • The proposed scheme can reduce the blackout time for solar-powered sensor nodes. • The proposed scheme can improve the quantity and quality of the collected data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy hole problem is a major concern in the wireless sensor network (WSN) given the uneven energy depletion of the power-constrained sensor nodes. Recently, several studies have incorporated a mobile data collector (MDC) to collect data from sensor nodes where the MDC reaches a set of data collection points (DCPs) to collect data from nearby nodes. This strategy has resolved the underlying cause of unbalanced energy consumption by avoiding the long chain of multi-hop routing. However, in most of the existing protocols, sensor nodes information is relayed to the Base Station (BS) to nominate MDC sojourn points and travel sequence. Such a centralized approach results in a substantial exchange of messages among sensor nodes causing high energy consumption. Moreover, these approaches perceived a uniform data generation rate at sensor nodes while ignoring the limited buffer cache capacity during the MDC path design. In this context, this paper proposes a distributed MDC sojourn point nomination method that significantly improves the message complexity and energy consumption of the WSN. The selected DCPs information is relayed to the BS where a modified Ant Colony Optimization algorithm is applied to construct the MDC traversal path. The performance of the proposed protocol is extensively analysed with some related existing schemes in terms of network parameters like energy efficiency, network lifetime, packet delivery ratio, and end to end delay. Moreover, the scalability of the proposed scheme is evaluated by varying the number of MDC and sensor nodes in the network. • A distributed Mobile Data Collector (MDC) sojourn point nomination method. • MDC data gathering trajectory simultaneously optimizes the energy and cache memory. • Ant Colony Optimization based data collection traversal sequence of the MDC. • Works with uniform as well as non-uniform data generating sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]