A virtual model to analyze congestion in a wireless sensor network (WSN)

To share data between several devices we need a network connection. The devices can be any electronic device which works on data transfer protocols, e.g. computer, laptop, smartphone, wired/wireless sensors, routers etc. These network can be of wired or wireless or a combination of both. In wired connection, these are stationary to each other where as in wireless network the probability of changing the relative position between them is high. Devices in wireless network uses cell or battery to get energy instead from a direct source of electricity. For each change in network setup, it needs to recalculate the path of packet transfer. In a dense area, i.e. area containing more devices than the others, congestion rate is high because of same route selected by more number of devices. In the presented paper we deal with sensors as the network device. Increase of congestion leads to many consequences like decision delay, loss of data in the form of packets, increased overhead while retransmission of dropped packets, energy loss due to increased work load by sensors and reduced life span of sensors. A virtual model is presented in this paper which will help in understanding how the data are shared with in a network of sink node and sensors and a method to detect and control congestion in a network setup.