Weak node protection to maximize the lifetime of wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) provide an approach to collecting distributed monitoring data and transmiting them to the sink node. This paper proposes a WSN-based multi-hop network infrastructure, to increase network lifetime by optimizing the routing strategy. First, a network model is established, an operating control strategy is devised, and energy consumption characteristics are analyzed. Second, a fast route-planning algorithm is proposed to obtain the original path that takes into account the remaining energy of communicating nodes and the amount of energy consumed in data transmission. Next, considering the amount of energy consumed by an individual node and the entire network, a criterion function is established to describe node performance and to evaluate data transmission ability. Finally, a route optimizing algorithm is proposed to increase network lifetime by adjusting the transmission route in protection of the weak node (the node with low transmission ability). Simulation and comparison experimental results demonstrate the good performance of the proposed algorithms to increase network lifetime.