On the energy balance problem in distributed sensor networks

Abstract

We investigate the problem of how to achieve energy balanced data propagation in distributed wireless sensor networks. The energy balance property guarantees that the average per sensor energy dissipation is the same for all sensors in the network, throughout the execution of the data propagation protocol. This property is crucial for prolonging the network lifetime, by avoiding early energy depletion of sensors. We survey representative solutions from the state of the art. We first present a basic algorithm that in each step probabilistically decides whether to propagate data one-hop towards the final destination (the sink), or to send it directly to the sink. This randomized choice trades-off the (cheap, but slow) one-hop transmissions with the direct transmissions to the sink, which are more expensive but bypass the bottleneck region around the sink and propagate data fast. By a detailed analysis using properties of stochastic processes and recurrence relations we precisely estimate (even in closed form) the probability for each propagation option necessary for energy balance. The fact (shown by our analysis) that direct (expensive) transmissions to the sink are needed only rarely, shows that our protocol, besides energy balanced, is also energy efficient. We then enhance this basic result by surveying some recent findings including a generalized algorithm and demonstrating the optimality of this two-way probabilistic data propagation, as well as providing formal proofs of the energy optimality of the energy balance property.