Abstract: Based on the multiplicatively weighted Voronoi diagram, an optimized path is designed to acquire data in sparse sensor networks. In the path, the data acquisition is implemented via the mobile acquiring nodes to visit a vertex subset of the virtual Voronoi diagram which is constructed through an iterative virtual site insertion process. The vertex subset covers all sensor nodes in a given transmission radius with the balanced energy consumption taken into consideration. The optimized path concatenating the vertex subset is much shorter than that generated by sensor nodes, thus reduces the time delay in data acquisition. A trade-off between time delay and energy consumption is implemented to meet different requirements by adjusting the coverage coefficient of virtual Voronoi diagram.