Energy Efficient Group Based Linear Wireless Sensor Networks for Application in Pipeline Monitoring

Abstract

Background: Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been researched to be one of the ground-breaking technologies for the remote monitoring of pipeline infrastructure of the Oil and Gas industry. Research has also shown that the preferred deployment approach of the sensor network on pipeline structures follows a linear array of nodes, placed at a distance from each other across the infrastructure length. The linear array topology of the sensor nodes gives rise to the name Linear Wireless Sensor Networks (LWSNs), which over the years have been applied to pipelines for effective remote monitoring and surveillance. This paper aims to investigate the energy consumption issue associated with LWSNs deployed in cluster-based fashion along with a pipeline infrastructure. Methods: Through quantitative analysis, the study attempts to approach the investigation conceptually focusing on mathematical analysis of proposed models to bring about conjectures on energy consumption performance. Results: From the derived analysis, results have shown that energy consumption is diminished to a minimum if there is a sink for every placed sensor node in the LWSN. To be precise, the analysis conceptually demonstrates that groups containing small number of nodes with a corresponding sink node are the approach to follow when pursuing a cluster-based LWSN for pipeline monitoring applications. Conclusion: From the results, it has been discovered that the energy consumption of a deployed LWSN can be decreased by creating groups out of the total deployed nodes with a sink node for each group. In essence, the smaller number of nodes each group contains with a corresponding sink, the less energy consumed in total for the entire LWSN. This, therefore, means that a sink for every individual node will attribute to minimum energy consumption for every non-sink node. From the study, it can be concurred that energy consumption of an LWSN is inversely proportional to the number of sinks deployed and hence the number of groups created.