To lengthen lifespan of a clustered wireless sensor network by partial coverage strategy

Abstract

Most of researches about the design of the topology and the operation of a wireless sensor network are focusing on how to take advantage of all sensor nodes to collect information that covering the whole sense area. A criticism been ignored that the goal of lengthening lifespan is conflict with the complete coverage strategy due to the overlapping of sensor area among nodes result in unnecessary waste of energy. In this study, we propose another proposition from the idea of partial coverage strategy: a near perfect coverage rate can be achieved by least nodes to save the energy of the whole network. The proposed topology is constructed by clustered structure. According to the simulation results that made by comparing with the classic clustered topology, LEACH, and other related methods proposed recently, the study find that the method proposed in this paper can double the lifespan of a wireless sensor network under the same condition. Furthermore, the construction method can efficiently achieve graceful degradation to maintain the usage of a sensor network in a long period.