An energy-efficient data fusion protocol for wireless sensor network

Abstract

It is a critical consideration to collect and fuse sensed information in an energy efficient manner for obtaining a long lifetime of the sensor network. Based on our findings that the conventional methods of direct transmission, shortest path routing, and Dempster-Shafer tool may not be optimal for data fusion of sensor networks, we propose LEECF (low-energy event centric fusion), a event-centric-based protocol that utilizes the centric sensor node to aggregate the event data among the triggered sensors in a short delay. LEECF incorporates a fast information fusion into the routing protocol to reduce the amount of information that must be transmitted to the sink and the time complexity of fusion computation of fusion center. Simulations show that LEECF can decrease the energy and fusion time significantly compared with conventional routing protocols and D-S evidence theory with the increased number of sensors.