Evaluating energy mechanisms for routing in wireless sensor networks

Sensor networks are often characterized by their large number of nodes that usually uses wireless communication, widely spread over sizeable geographical areas to monitor the environment. Considering their limited processing, memory and energy capacities, it becomes necessary for support mechanisms to ensure the rational use of their resources. It is in this context that we examine routing protocols, and show how these can be energy conscious by avoiding nodes with less spare energy. This work presents a family of protocols; we refer to as OPER (on-demand power-efficient routing), which seeks to save node energy by evaluating the energy consumption impact of a given route. The conducted simulations show that OPER outperforms other algorithms that are evaluated