Modeling in-network processing and aggregation in sensor networks: algorithms and evaluation

The rapid advances in processor, memory and radio technology have enabled the development of distributed networks of sensor nodes capable of sensing and communicating using wireless media. The basic operation in sensor networks is the systematic gathering and transmission of sensed data to the end-user. The severe energy constraints and limited computing capabilities of the sensors present major challenges to sensor network design. We propose two new protocols for in-network processing and data aggregation, DEEPADS (distributed energy-efficient protocol for aggregation of data in sensor networks) and C-DEEPADS (clustered-DEEPADS) that maximize the lifetime of the sensor network. Simulation results show that our protocols perform better than these existing approaches: directed diffusion (Intanagonwiwat, C. et al., 2003), LEACH (Heinzelman, W. et al., 2002), PEDAP and PEDAP-PA (Tan, H.O. and Korpeoglu, I., 2003.). The two-tier hierarchical approach of C-DEEPADS is optimal in terms of maximizing the system lifetime as well as reducing-the end-to-end latency