A data fusion protocol for WSN performance and data retrieval

Abstract

The specific capabilities of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), such as fast deployment and flexibility, together with the low cost solutions that can be achieved, bring new opportunities for an all-new range of applications, far from the typical scenarios of low requirements and high redundancy. Some of these new scenarios involve the assurance of predefined performance goals. To guarantee that these goals are achieved, a careful constant monitoring must exist. However, this monitoring depletes nodes energy (especially in middle nodes that have to retransmit the information to the sink), increases interference between nodes and causes an overhead in the used bandwidth, a foreseeable result if measuring performance of a large multilevel WSN. In the protocol to be presented, data fusion is used to enhance the benefits of continuous monitoring while minimizing its implied overhead, using the specific characteristics of WSNs in its favor.