An Energy-Aware Protocol for Data Gathering Applications in Wireless Sensor Networks

—Data gathering is a major function of many applications in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The most important issue in designing a data gathering algorithm is how to save energy of sensor nodes while meeting the requirement of applications/users such as sensing area coverage. In this paper, we propose a novel hierarchical clustering protocol for long-lived sensor network. EAP achieves a good performance in terms of lifetime by minimizing energy consumption for in-network communications and balancing the energy load among all nodes. EAP introduces a new clustering parameter for cluster head election, which can better handle the heterogeneous energy capacities. Furthermore, it also introduces a simple but efficient approach, namely intra-cluster coverage to cope with the area coverage problem. We evaluate the performance of the proposed protocol using a simple temperature sensing application. Simulation results show that our protocol significantly outperforms LEACH and HEED in terms ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: ICC
• Authors: Ming Liu, Yuan Zheng, Jiannong Cao, Guihai Chen, Lijun Chen 0006, Hai-gang Gong
• Keywords: Area Coverage, Communications, ICC 2007, Sensor Network, Wireless Sensor Networks