PANEL: Position-based Aggregator Node Election in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we introduce PANEL, a position-based aggregator node election protocol for wireless sensor networks. The novelty of PANEL with respect to other aggregator node election protocols is that it supports asynchronous sensor network applications where the sensor readings are fetched by the base stations after some delay. In particular, the motivation for the design of PANEL was to support reliable and persistent data storage applications, such as TinyPEDS. PANEL ensures load balancing, and it supports intra-and inter-cluster routing allowing sensor to aggregator, aggregator to aggregator, base station to aggregator, and aggregator to base station communications. We also present simulation results showing that PANEL is very energy efficient.