Energy Efficiency in Data Dissemination Protocols of Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Networks of small, inexpensive, disposable, and smart sensors are emerging as a new technology with tremendous potential. Wireless sensor networks can be randomly deployed inside or close to a phenomenon to be monitored without the need for human intervention. Energy supplies of sensor nodes are not replenished or replaced and, therefore, nodes only participate in the network for as long as they have energy. This fact necessitates energy efficiency considerations in the design of every aspect of such nodes. Energy of the nodes is the primary metric that dominates wireless sensor networks due to its profound impact on network operational lifetime. Energy consumption in sensor nodes occurs mainly due to computational processing and, to a greater extent, communication. The most important objective of this research work is to understand and to make in-depth analysis of the problem of energy constraint in wireless sensor networks. Based on which it is proposed energy efficient data dissemination protocol, called Cell Based Routing Protocol (CBR-WSN). The algorithm finds three optimal paths to adjacent cells out of eight possible paths based on two criteria - transmission cost and available energy level. Each cell offers maximum energy sensor node to forward packets towards the sink. We approach the problem of energy conservation from the aspect of network protocols. The proposed protocol has been evaluated against Direct Diffusion (DD), and Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) protocols. Based on simulation results the CBR-WSN has enhanced the energy efficiency by 8.16% when compared to LEACH protocol. In fact, it is still possible to improve the energy efficiency by handling idle time energy waste and computation energy. Comparing the lifetime of the proposed protocol against LEACH, with similar simulation parameters, the proposed protocol has improved the lifetime by a minimum of 2%. Moreover, only cluster heads are responsible for data dissemination, coordination and scheduling node activities inside a cell. Cluster heads hand over their role when the residual energy becomes less than one of the cell member‘s energy.