Enhanced route selection for energy efficiency in wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) facilitate monitoring and controlling of physical environments from remote locations with the best possible accuracy. Sensor networks are dense wireless networks consisting of groups of small, inexpensive nodes, which collect and disseminate critical data. Thus, sensor nodes have various energy and computational constraints, due to their inexpensive nature and ad hoc method of deployment. Considerable research has been focused at overcoming these deficiencies through low-energy consumption schemes. Among, other factors, the route selection strategy may have an impact on the network lifetime. In this paper, we present a lifetime prolonging route selection strategy for wireless sensor networks, namely Low Cost Min-Max Energy Routing (LCMMER). The proposed algorithm tries to avoid the least-energy nodes, while at the same time to maintain low energy consumption for each transmission. Simulation results confirm the superiority of the proposed strategy in terms of node lifetime and network connectivity in comparison with the Minimum Total Transmission Power Routing (MTPR) and the Min-Max Battery Cost Routing (MMBCR) route selection strategies.