An energy-efficient distributed routing algorithm for wireless sensor networks

This paper presents a simple routing protocol based on topology control and cost-forwarding that improves the lifetime of a wireless sensor network in the usual convergecast pattern, by allowing the nodes to choose between two predefined power-levels to forward data towards the sink. The proposed protocol takes advantage of non-homogeneous topologies, where the nodes are grouped in clouds. Nodes use the highest power only when necessary, like for bridging the distance between two clouds. Within the clouds, only low-power links are used. The underlying distributed algorithm is shown to converge and finds, for each node of the network, an efficient path to the sink.