Topology estimation method for telecommunication networks

In order to resolve the traditional limited lifetime problem, energy harvesting technology has been introduced into wireless sensor network (WSN) in recent years, engendering a new kind of network which is called energy harvesting wireless sensor network (EHWSN). In EHWSNs, besides the traditional issues, such as energy consumption, energy equilibrium, transmission efficiency, etc., there are still new challenges, such as how to utilize harvested energy efficiently and how to make more sensor nodes so as to achieve unlimited lifetime under actual situation. In this paper, inspired by slime mold Physarum polycephalum, a novel bionic routing protocol, abbreviated as EHPRP, is proposed for EHWSNs to address above problems without predicting harvestable energy value. Three distributed routing algorithms with low algorithm complexity are proposed which would prominently reduce the processing delay and conserve energy. Furthermore, the mathematic theoretical analysis is made to prove the stability of EHPRP routing strategy. Finally, simulation results present that, compared with other typical algorithms, EHPRP consumes less energy, always making the whole network obtain an unlimited lifetime, and displaying more uniform network energy distribution under different workload conditions.