Load-balancing routing for wireless sensor networks with multiple sinks

Funneling effect is one severe problem for monitoring wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The introduction of multiple sinks can alleviate the problem of funneling effects. However, the advantage of multiple sinks may not be exploited fully if imbalance of loads exists in the network. This paper studies how to balance the loads for a sensor network with multiple sinks so as to prolong the network life. Motivated by the idea of commercial network, a load-balancing routing approach which especially focuses on balancing the loads of critical nodes is proposed. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the approach.