Hierarchical energy efficient routing in wireless sensor networks and its challenges

Abstract

Wireless sensor network consists of various sensor nodes connected through wireless media. Sensor nodes are tiny devices having lesser energy capabilities. Sensor nodes are either ad-hoc or mobile in their environment. Wireless sensor network route of transmission media is discovered by routing protocols and responsible for secure communication between sensor nodes. Energy is a precious resource of sensor nodes, and the entire lifetime of WSNs is depending on the energy capability of the sensor nodes. The fundamental problem is how to organize topology of WSN for deployed sensor nodes with lesser power consumption as possible. Major problems in wireless sensor networks which consume extra energy are interference, control message overhead, packet delay, unnecessary transmission, and bandwidth utilization. Therefore, energy efficient techniques are needed to overcome these problems. Hierarchical routing is the best routing method for finding optimal path between sensor nodes which enhance the lifetime of the network. This paper focuses towards various hierarchical energy efficient routing in wireless sensor networks and analyzes various features of WSN that should consider during designing of routing protocols.