Evidence-based Power Management in Distributed Sensor Networks

Abstract

A novel evidence-based approach to energy management in distributed sensor networks (DSNs) is presented. Current approaches and algorithms to DSN energy management are “bottom up” in that they do not consider aspects of the domain of application and particular geographic and environmental situational dynamics to manage energy usage as efficiently as possible. Results from an evidential approach to DSN energy management in a forest fire monitoring and management application are presented. A body of mathematics called evidential reasoning is used to represent and integrate information about the situational dynamics and forest fire detection and monitoring application to draw inferences about the state of nodes in a distributed network. An 18% improvement in energy efficiency compared to the LEACH-C algorithm was observed when the state of the forest environment and knowledge about the dynamics of forest fires are considered managing the state and activity of the DSN. Simulation results using NS2 suggest that the useful life of DSNs can be extended significantly if the situational dynamics and aspects of the domain of application are taken into account.