MITECRO: a protocol for sensor networks to MInimize Total Energy consumption during each ROund of sensed data gathering

Abstract

Common applications of sensor networks include continuous monitoring where sensors are deployed over a region and the sensed data are gathered at a distant base station periodically. In each round of data gathering, our MITECRO protocol minimizes the total energy consumption of the sensor network. This may however unbalance energy consumption over all sensor nodes. As a result, few nodes may die earlier than the others. Experiments show that MITECRO nearly doubles the network lifetime compared to existing protocol that optimally balances all sensors' energy consumption. Since MITECRO cannot ensure 100% node availability throughout the network's lifetime, overall sensing coverage might be compromised. We argue that the more sensor nodes have overlapping sensing coverage, the better our protocol will perform in maximizing network lifetime without significantly compromising overall sensing coverage