Power-efficient communication algorithms for wireless mobile sensor networks

Abstract

One important issue in wireless sensor networks is how to gather sensed information in an energy efficient way since the energy is a scarce resource in a sensor node. Many protocols have been proposed for data-gathering between wireless sensor nodes. However, most of these protocols work on static wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we provide clustering-based and time-driven protocols which minimize energy dissipation for data-gathering in wireless mobile sensor networks where the sensor nodes are capable of mobility. We first consider the node mobility when organizing clusters. Our protocols will have a sensor node select a proper cluster-head to join in order to save energy. We then consider how to elect the cluster-heads and provide two algorithms for cluster-head election. Last, we implement all the protocols and perform the experiments for evaluating the protocols.