Comparative Analysis on Energy-Efficient Data Aggregation Methods in Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

The powerful impact of Wireless Sensor Networks has made them popular in different application areas such as health monitoring, military surveillance, environment monitoring, etc. Over a decade, significant growth has been made in the area however, there are several challenges in the design and successful deployment of Wireless Sensor Networks for end-to-end applications.The article presents a comparative analysis of the techniques used to improve the performance of a wireless sensor network by using different data aggregation protocols. Amongst all existing approaches of data aggregation, the most important approach is based on the formation of Clusters of nodes. As all nodes do not have the same level of energy hence efficient clustering is necessary to conserve the power of each node. The architecture of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can be homogeneous or heterogeneous. It has been observed that different mechanisms exist for classification, data aggregation, and optimization of the energy in each node. The study compares the performance of different wireless sensor networks based on different parameters and subsequently analyzes how such schemes clash with particular requirements. Lastly, this study examines the techniques employed in the WSNs to reach a trade-off among different needs and reflect comparisons in energy utilization of traditional existing data aggregation methods.