Multi-Sink Convergecast Protocol for Large Scale Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor nodes are designed to collect information about their immediate environment. Once gathered, such data are forwarded via a multi-hop communication pattern to a remote gateway, also known as the sink. This process referred to as the convergecast may often require several sinks in order to improve network efficiency and resilience. Provided that load among the latter nodes are well balanced and packet losses are mitigated. This paper aims to design such a protocol by combining clustering, path-vector routing and sinks’ duty cycle scheduling schemes to help balance load and minimize message overhead. Simulation results proved that this solution outperforms DMS-RP (Dynamic Multi-Sink Routing Protocol), a recent state-ofthe-art contribution, in terms of delay minimization, packet delivery and network lifetime enhancement.