Power conservation in Wireless Sensor Networks: A graph-theoretic approach

The essence of this contribution is to apply a graph-theoretic approach to minimize the overall power consumption in a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). The scenario we assume involves having remote sensor nodes, whose number and types are varied, under the control of a central authority which is an Access Point (AP). The only parameter which significantly influences the power consumption of a sensor node is the power level of the transmitter, the needed transmitter power level being a function of the distance the node is required to bridge to communicate with a destination node. To ensure that the overall power consumption of the WSN nodes is minimal, we model the WSN nodes and the links interconnecting all of the node pairs as a set of vertices and edges of a weighted graph and obtain the minimum spanning tree using Kruskals Algorithm. The resulting WSN structure operates in such a way that each node is set at the minimum power level possible, thus minimizing the overall power consumption of the WSN.