An energy-efficient data-dissemination protocol in wireless sensor networks

A typical data-dissemination sensor network consists of a large number of sensor nodes, which are normally energy-constrained and unlikely to be recharged in field. Redundant sensor nodes are often deployed to increase network robustness, and to extend network lifetime. Target and inquirer mobilities further bring more challenges to large-scale sensor networks. Frequent location updates for multiple inquirers and targets can drain the limited onboard energy excessively. We present EEDD, an energy-efficient data-dissemination protocol to address both the target and inquirer mobility problem and the energy conservation problem. We extend network lifetime by adopting a virtual-grid-based two-level architecture to schedule the activities of sensor nodes. Furthermore, we propose an adaptive scheduling scheme and a data dissemination scheme to reduce sensing delay and packet forwarding delay. The simulation results show that our protocol saves up to twelve times energy without much increased delay when compared with protocol not considering energy efficiency.