An Analysis of Hierarchical Routing Strategy with Advanced Additional Sensors in WSNs

Abstract

Two kinds of sensors will be discussed in some sort of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). One is named a normal sensor (called A_nodes) with fixed initial energy, which can get perception data from the surrounding environment and have functions of storage and forwarding. The other is named relay sensor (called B_node) with sufficient energy, which only can store data and forward data. Cluster heads (called A_heads) are chosen among A_nodes by probability mode to create clusters first. Local adjustments would be done inter-cluster. Then the sink is selected as the root and a backbone shortest path tree with hops limited is built dynamically from A_heads, B_Nodes and sink. Inside the backbone shortest path aggregation tree, two steps are done. The first step, select some B_node as cluster head (denoted as B_node) and make local adjustment intra-clusters if it is possible. The second step, adjust the shortest path aggregation tree. By using both particle swarm optimization (PSO) and ant colony optimization (ACO), a traveling salesman problem (TSP) cycle with shorter path length is obtained (this method is noted as TSP_PSO_ACO). This TSP cycle consists of all nodes in the aggregation backbone tree. Along this cycle, energy is offered to nodes except sink. The above strategy would be discussed for its feasibility and time complexity. The experimental results imply that the energy consumption is reduced by using local adjustment. The relative failure rate of nodes can be reduced in the later stage of WSN survival. Offering energy to a small number of nodes several times has no obvious impact on the overall energy consumption and survival time of WSN. The case with some small-sized obstacles in WSN area is also discussed. There are little affections on TSP cycles both from results on theoretical analysis and simulation if there are some obstacles with small size in WSN area.