A differential coding algorithm for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

A typical problem in wireless sensor networks is how to collect and send historical information from all sensor nodes to the base station. As the available energy of these nodes is a critical resource, it is typically not feasible to transmit a full-resolution data feed from each sensor node to the base station. Therefore, it is important to apply techniques of data reduction so that fewer bits can be transmitted. In this work, we propose an algorithm for differentiated codification such that the sensor nodes send only the differences of their readings to a common data base. Simulation results reveal that the algorithm performs well in applications where the sensor nodes collect similar readings.