On Slicing Weighted Energy-Harvesting Wireless Sensing Networks with Transmission Range Uncertainty

In this paper, we deal with a wireless sensor network (WSN) infrastructure management problem where a provider wants to partition a network into a given number of node-disjoint subgraphs (called slices) for running different user applications. Nodes in the given infrastructure use energy harvesting for prolonged service time. The nodes manage fluctuations in their stored energy by adjusting their transmission range. We assume that each node is assigned an importance weight, and model the overall network using a probabilistic graph. In this context, we formalize a problem, denoted k-WBS-RU (for k weighted balanced slices with range uncertainty), to partition the network into k slices subject to some connectivity and operation constraints. We devise a solution to the problem, and present numerical results on the quality of the obtained slices. We also discuss an application of the proposed framework and solution when the assigned weights are derived from an area coverage application.