Optimal Hop Lengths to Ensure Minimum Energy Consumption in Wireless Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks, nodes have a low computing capacity, a small antenna and a very limited energy source; thereby batteries are considered as a critical resource and should be used efficiently. On the other hand, the antennas are the biggest consumers of energy, therefore, and their use must be very efficient to minimize energy consumption. In a dense WSN, each node may route messages to destination nodes either through short-hops or long-hops, by using a short or a long radio range. Thus, the hop length optimization can save energy. In this article, the authors propose a theorem to optimize the hop lengths and a routing algorithm to improve the WSN power consumption. The theorem establishes a simple condition to ensure the optimal hop lengths which guarantees the minimum energy consumption. And the proposed algorithm based on that condition is used to find the optimal routing path. The simulation results are obtained by applying the condition and the algorithm on WSNs and reveals a high performance regarding WSNs energy consumption and network lifetime.