A tree-based routing protocol in wireless sensor networks

In order to efficiently utilize the limited energy resources of sensor nodes to prolong the lifetime of wireless sensor networks, this paper presents a power-aware tree-based routing protocol called TRP. Each sensor node finds a parent node according to the energy dissipation of communication, the distance between neighbor nodes and sink, and residual energy of neighbor nodes. Thus a near optimal minimum spanning tree rooted on sink is constructed. Data gathered by sensor nodes is transmitted along tree and is fused in overlap nodes. Simulation results show that TRP effectively decreases the energy consumption of sensor nodes and obviously prolongs the network lifetime. It performs better than LEACH.