Hotness-Aware Sensor Networks

In a realistic sensor network, in particular with a non-uniform deployment, sensor nodes inevitably have varying workloads. This causes a natural problem that some sensor nodes are subject to excessive power consumption and thus become hot. These hot nodes deplete much earlier resulting in system performance degradation. This paper proposes a systematic approach to design a hotness-aware sensor network where each node is able to obtain its own hotness information. Based on these vital information, the system is able to provide various technologies to protect the critical set of hot nodes. More specifically, we design a centralized optimal algorithm to derive the precise hotness of each node. In addition, we develop a completely distributed algorithm to estimate hotness with high accuracy. An effective hotness-aware MAC is developed to offer medium access priority to the nodes with higher hotness to protect and prolong their lifetimes. It is demonstrated, through both theoretical analysis and comprehensive simulations, that our approach is valuable to improving system performance of practical sensor networks.