An Energy Efficient Sink Deployment Scheme aiming at extending the Lifespan for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

The issue “Sink’s Neighbor Problem” hinders the applications of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Owing to the heavier traffic burden they bear, the nodes close to the sink tend to dissipate their energy faster than others. They die earlier when their energy is used up. The energy efficiency is vital for WSNs because it is unpractical for the sensor nodes to be recharged. An Energy Efficient sink Deployment Scheme (EEDS) aiming at extending the lifespan for wireless sensor networks is proposed. It alleviates the energy consumption imbalance by adopting a mobile sink and regulating its route. Specifically speaking, a mobile sink moves in the monitor area with a certain rate and lingers at the fixed stops. During its move, the sensor nodes collect the data and store them in their memorizers. It is proved that the network lifetime is extended to be approximately six times compared with the static sink used only schemes via mathematical analysis. Besides, the scheme is extensible when the monitor area is enlarged. Finally, the energy efficiency of EEDS is evaluated through comparisons with the strategies only using static or mobile sinks. Experiment results show that EEDS has a good energy efficiency and can extend the network lifespan to be approximately 6 times compared with that of static-sink-used-only schemes. Besides, it is prolonged to be 148 percent of that of strategy using the mobile sink such as GMRE.