Design factors for sustainable sensor networks

It is challenging to design a sustainable sensor network if sensors are battery powered. When designing a sensor network with a previously known area of deployment, finding the minimum number of sensors to maximize the network´s lifetimes is a key issue. Sensor deployment is critical when we use sensors in security and military sensing, since we cannot reach the sensor field. In such cases we have no control over the distance from cluster head (CH) to sink node. Therefore, it is important to know the optimal number of sensors to be used. The main objective of this paper is to compute the optimal number of sensor nodes needed to design a sensor network sustainable for a given lifetime. This can vary according to the distance from cluster head to sink node. Therefore, we can choose the optimal number of sensors needed to get the maximum network lifetime according to the distance between the cluster head and sink node. Similarly, if we know the time period we need to get information, we can select the maximum number of sensors needed. This can save the total cost of the network, which is significant in wireless sensor networks.