DSS: Dynamic Switching Sets for prolonging network lifetime in sensor nodes

One of the most highly researched issues in wireless sensor networks is prolonging network lifetime. This is due to the limited battery capacity of a deployed node in the field of interest. It would be costly, impractical and sometimes impossible to replace their batteries once they are deployed in a remote field. When a large number of these sensor nodes are deployed (e.g. thousands) and if not properly handled, this can also lead to collisions during transmission and network congestion. This will no doubt increase latency and reduce efficiency in terms of energy consumption. We propose a practical solution called DSS (Dynamic Switching Sets) to solve the problem of network congestion as well as prolonging network lifetime. The Dynamic Switching Sets algorithm divides the scattered deployed nodes (in a non-deterministic) of the entire WSN in the field of interest into multiple DSS. An active DSS running an application would also maintain coverage of the entire sensory area while the remaining DSS are in sleeping mode waiting for their sequential turn to come alive to an active mode in a predefined sequence.