On the impact of the death criterion on the WSN lifetime

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are sensor based networks that are widely used in various critical applications and require the network to have a prolonged lifetime. However, these networks rely on battery-operated sensors that cause the network to be resource-constrained. Therefore, there is a continuous urge to efficiently exploit the network's energy, and henceforth, prolong the network lifetime. In this paper, we assess the impact of the death criterion on the network lifetime. We relate how the data from the different sensors are aggregated, which depends on the WSN application, to the death criterion. Additionally, we study the impact of the number of sensing cycles per network master on the network lifetime and energy efficiency for the different considered death criteria. Finally, the effect of the network master selection process, i.e. random versus planned, is examined to assess its effect on the network's energy efficiency.