Agent Based Analytical Model for Energy Consumption among Border Nodes in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

This paper presents an agent-based analytical model to minimize the energy consumption for border nodes in Sensor-Medium Access Control (S-MAC), a cluster-based contention protocol. The S-MAC protocol is based on a unique feature; it conserves battery power at nodes by powering off nodes that are not actively transmitting or receiving packets. In doing so, nodes also turn off their radios. Inspired by the energy conservation mechanism of the S-MAC, the paper further augments the node life time in sensor networks by reducing the duty cycle of border nodes. These border nodes act as shared nodes between virtual clusters. Virtual clusters are formed on the basis of sleep/listen schedule of nodes. Towards this end, not only our proposed approach allows border nodes to join cluster where they experience minimum energy drain. Indeed, it stops the formation of abrupt communication holes due to hastily burning of border nodes. Thereby, prolonging network life and preventing disgraceful segmentations of wireless sensor network. To validate the proposed approach, a java based custom simulator is implemented. The results demonstrate, quantitatively, the trade of between energy consumption and node placement to prolong the life time of border nodes in S-MAC.KeywordsSensor NetworkSensor NodeWireless Sensor NetworkMedium Access ControlMobile AgentThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.