Efficient Reliable Data Collection in Wireless Sensor Networks

We propose an efficient reliable data collection(eRDC) algorithm. The eRDC is designed for energy-constraint wireless sensor networks (WSN) to balance reliability and energy consumption. We derive energy efficiencies of the proposed reliability schemes, and evaluate their performances. These analyses provide a guideline to determine the number of retransmissions for reliable data delivery. Dynamic programming concept is used to find the optimal solution. We present a distributed eRDC implementation to dynamically control the maximum number of retransmissions based on the guideline provided. Discrete event simulations and field trials with wireless sensor nodes confirmed our results.