Analysis of Lifetime of Large Wireless Sensor Networks Based on Multiple Battery Levels

Due to the limited transmission range, data sensed by each sensor has to be forwarded in a multi-hop fashion before being delivered to the sink. The sensors closer to the sink have to forward comparatively more messages than sensors at the periphery of the network, and will deplete their batteries earlier. Besides the loss of the sensing capabilities of the nodes close to the sink, a more serious consequence of the death of the first tier of sensor nodes is the loss of connectivity between the nodes at the periphery of the network and the sink; it makes the wireless networks expire. To alleviate this undesired effect and maximize the useful lifetime of the network, we investigate the energy consumption of different tiers and the effect of multiple battery levels, and demonstrate an attractively simple scheme to redistribute the total energy budget in multiple battery levels by data traffic load. We show by theoretical analysis, as well as simulation, that this substantially improves the network lifetime.