Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of small nodes with sensing, computation, and wireless communications capabilities. Many routing, power management, and data gathering protocols have been specially designed for WSNs where energy awareness is an essential design issue. The focus, however, has been given to the routing protocols which might differ depending on the application and network architecture. The clustering based hierarchical model imposes a structure on the network to achieve energy efficiency, stability, and scalability. In this model, network nodes are organized in clusters in which a node assumes the role of a cluster head. The cluster head is responsible for coordinating activities within the cluster and forwarding information between clusters. Clustering has potential to reduce energy consumption and extend the life time of the network. After it, we proposed PEGASIS (Power-Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information Systems) model, a near optimal chain-based protocol that is an improvement over clustering based model. In PEGASIS, each node communicates only with a close neighbour and takes turns transmitting to the base station, thus reducing the amount of energy spent per round.