Competitive decision algorithm for constructing maximum lifetime spanning tree in wireless sensor networks

In WSN, a tree-based topology is often used to collect data from sensor nodes. When constructing the tree, a key challenge is to conserve energy consumption among the nodes and maximum system lifetime. Previous works have shown that finding a maximum lifetime data gathering tree from all possible spanning trees is a NP-hard problem. Here we design a competitive decision algorithm for solving it by balancing the load between the sensor nodes. One feature of it is using some mathematical properties to reduce the size of the problem. Another feature is that there is no need to know the positions of sensor nodes, which are impractical for many applications. Simulation results show that this new approach greatly improves the lifetime of the network and is competitive whether applied in a dense or sparse network or whether the sink node is at the center of the network or outside it.