Wastage-Aware Routing in Energy-Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks

Environmental energy harvesting or scavenging can provide a solution to the energy capacity limitation of wireless sensor networks. However, in order to efficiently use harvested energy, the harvest properties need to be incorporated into the network design. Existing harvest-aware routing protocols incorporate node residual battery and forecast energy harvest information into routing decisions. We propose a route selection scheme that additionally considers the network energy wastage due to overcharge of finite-capacity batteries, which has not been previously considered. This is done by minimizing the cost associated with the energy consumption due to packet transmission, and the energy wastage due to battery overcharge. We show in the simulation results that by doing so, higher residual energy levels can be achieved. Further, this paper also investigates how various network factors, such as topology, energy consumption rate, and prediction errors affect energy savings through wastage awareness.