Lifetime planning for TDMA-based proactive WSN with structured deployment

It is commonly accepted that the primary design goal in wireless sensor networks is the reduction of energy costs. Thus, the concept of lifetime planning is prioritized over capacity planning when dealing with such networks instead of the traditional ones. This paper offers a systematized treatment of the lifetime of TDMA-based proactive sensor networks with structured deployment. This is the case of many environmental networks, which are devoted to the regular monitoring of some physical or even chemical variables, for scientific study and/or for taking appropriate control actions. On the other hand, sensor nodes in structured deployments are located at strategic positions that may not be as close to each other as in random and massive deployments. Thus, in the second part of this paper, a cost-effective mechanism that consists of inserting pure switching nodes in some links is proposed, as a way of enhancing lifetime by alleviating the severe effects of the path loss exponent in the radio propagation model.