Data gathering routing algorithm based on energy level in wireless sensor networks

Since data gathering is the primary functionality of sensor networks, it is crucial to provide an appropriate method for information collecting in the face of limited energy challenge. While conventional protocols are inclined to take decreasing the end-to-end delay and minimizing the total energy consumption into consideration. In this paper, we discuss an existing Fast Low-cost Shortest Path Tree algorithm FLSPT, which is originally proposed as a multicast tree routing. Based on FLSPT, we put forward a data gathering algorithm DGEL, which introduces the concept of energy level into FLSPT under the wireless sensor networks environment. DGEL achieves transcendent performance in balancing the overall cost with energy conservation. Moreover, DGEL guarantees the maximum data throughput until all links disconnect due to residual energy shortage. Simulation experiments also demonstrate that DGEL prolong the network lifetime comparing with FLSPT.