A Mechanism for Load Balancing Routing and Virtualization Based on SDWSN for IoT Applications

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are important communication components of an internet of things (IoT). With the development of IoT and the increasing number of connected devices, network structure management and maintenance face the serious challenge of energy consumption. By balancing the network load, the energy consumption can be improved effectively. In the conventional WSN architecture, the two prerequisites of the load-balancing mechanism, flexibility and adaptability, are difficult to achieve. software-defined networking (SDN) is a novel network architecture that can promote flexibility and adaptability using a centralized controller. In this paper, a novel SDN architecture aimed at reducing load distribution and prolonging lifetime is proposed, which consists of different components such as topology, BS and controller discovery, link, and virtual routing. Accordingly, a new mechanism is proposed for load-balancing routing through SDN and virtualization. Through direct monitoring of the link load information and the network running status, the employed OpenFlow protocol can determine load-balancing routing for every flow in different IoT applications. The flows in different resource applications can be directed to a base station (BS) via various routes. This implementation reduces the exchange of network status and other relevant information. Virtual routing aims to weigh forward nodes and select the best node for each IoT application. The simulation results show the distribution of load over the network in the proposed algorithm and are characterized by the balanced network energy consumption, but also it prolongs network lifetime in comparison to the LEACH, improved LEACH, and LEACH-C algorithms.