An Energy-Aware Selection Cooperation Protocol for Energy-Constrained Sensor Networks

Selection cooperation is an efficient and low complexity way to improve transmission reliability for wireless sensor networks. However, it is difficult to accomplish cooperation when the nodes run out of battery. How the remaining energy of nodes affects the implementation of selection cooperation is interesting. In this paper, the energy-constrained sensor networks is considered, where the relay nodes are battery-powered and energy-aware. Comprehensively considering channel quality and residual energy of relay nodes, an energy-aware selection cooperation protocol which employs feedback from the destination is proposed to enhance the reliability of data transmission and reduce energy consumption. And in order to balance the energy and extend the network lifetime, three energy-based relay selection strategies are presented. In which, the relay node with insufficient energy or bad channel quality is excluded first to ensure the transmission. The simulation results provide practical insights into the effects of the energy on the outage probability with various system parameters. In particular, our approach can slow down energy consumption of relay nodes and prolong the networks lifetime.