OPTIMIZING ENERGY CONSUMPTION OF VEHICLE SENSOR NETWORKS BASED ON THE K-MEANS CLUSTERING METHOD AND ANT COLONY ALGORITHM

Abstract. With the world’s growing population, the number of vehicles has increased, but the capacity of roads and transportation systems has not. The increasing traffic and the pollution that it causes has therefore become a problem all over the world. Wireless Sensor Networks that detect traffic and prevent its pernicious effects have attracted the attention of many. Fast information transfers, easy installation, less repair and maintenance, compression and lower costs make WSNs more common than other network solutions (Nellore and Hancke 2016). Since more traffic congestion wastes time and energy, it is crucial to develop and present approaches to more accurately detect traffic patterns. Clustering is one of the best data analysis methods used for detecting traffic patterns. The approach proposed by this study assumes that all vehicles are equipped with GPS, and that sensors establish connections with each other through radio communication equipment. In this case, clustering is used to gather important traffic information and create intelligent urban transportation systems (ITS) to reduce sensor energy consumption in vehicular sensor networks. The K-means method and the ANT Colony optimization algorithm were used to cluster sensors and investigate their impact on reducing sensor energy consumption. The results show that the K-means algorithm and the ANT Colony algorithm reduce vehicular sensor energy consumption by 41.7 and 76.8 percent, respectively. The investigations showed that the ANT Colony algorithm outperformed the K-means algorithm by 84.2%.