Sink-oriented tree based data dissemination protocol for mobile sinks wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Data dissemination toward static sinks causes the nearby nodes to deplete their energy quicker than the other nodes in the field (i.e., this is referred to as the hotspot problem). Accordingly, topology disruptions will occur and no data will be delivered to the sink. Mobile sinks are proposed to solve the hotspot problem in wireless sensor networks; they provide a load balancing and an energy consumption balancing for the whole network. However, sink mobility introduces new challenges (e.g., frequent location updates and packets delay). In this paper, we proposed a distributed sink-oriented dissemination protocol called Sink-oriented Tree based Data Dissemination (STDD). STDD constructs just one main dissemination tree for each mobile sink. When the access node is changed, the main tree will be updated and maintained to guarantee the shortest path to the mobile sinks. The updated and maintained tree is not a new tree; however, it is just a new version with only a few changes in a few levels of the main tree itself. Simulations show that STDD achieves a significant performance in terms of latency, network lifetime, delivery rate, and energy consumption compared with the state-of-the-art approaches.