ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the challenge to simultaneously achieve the maximal lifetime and the maximal total utility in a multihop wireless sensor network (WSN) communication system, for there is usually a contradiction between these two objectives but a trade-off exists between them. In WSN information and communication systems, an additional important resource constraint is the Media Access Control (MAC) constraint. The chapter proposes a network utility maximization (NUM) model, which is essentially a cross-layer constrained maximization problem. It presents the NUM model and the fair rate allocation problem. The chapter evaluates the network utility and lifetime trade-off issue into a NUM model, transforms it into a separable and convex optimization mathematical model, and finally proposes a partially distributed algorithm to solve the targeted problem. It discusses a new model to achieve a fully distributed algorithm. The chapter talks about the convergence properties of the distributed algorithm. It also presents numerical results to demonstrate the network performance.
