Biologically inspired node scheduling control for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are generally comprised of densely deployed sensor nodes, which results in highly redundant sensor data transmissions and energy waste. Since the sensor nodes depend on batteries for energy, previous studies have focused on designing energy-efficient medium access control (MAC) protocols to extend the network lifetime. However, the energy-efficient protocols induce an extra end-to-end delay, and therefore recent increase in focus on WSNs has led to timely and reliable communication protocols for mission-critical applications. In this paper, we propose an energy efficient and delay guaranteeing node scheduling scheme inspired by biological systems, which have gained considerable attention as a computing and problem solving technique. With the identification of analogies between cellular signaling systems and WSN systems, we formulate a new mathematical model that considers the networking challenges of WSNs. The proposed bio-inspired algorithm determines the state of the sensor node, as required by each application and as determined by the local environmental conditions and the states of the adjacent nodes. A control analysis shows that the proposed bio-inspired scheme guarantees the system stability by controlling the parameters of each node. Simulation results also indicate that the proposed scheme provides significant energy savings, as well as reliable delay guarantees by controlling the states of the sensor nodes.