An Energy-Balanced Data Gathering Algorithm for Linear Wireless Sensor Networks

Aiming at the data unbalance of sensor nodes in the wireless sensor networks (WSN), this paper mainly studies the data gathering algorithm for linear WSNs. As the data amount varies from the time spent on data gathering of entire network minimal, it is a key factor to balance energy consumption and further prolong the network lifetime. Therefore, this paper proposes a TDMA scheduling algorithm for general k-hop networks, and takes detail performance analysis on the algorithm. Furthermore, we present the method of selecting the optimal hop-count and its formula as well as the formula of the number of timeslots required for converge-cast in order to maximize network lifetime. Finally, we obtain some general conclusions of network optimization based on the theoretical analysis and simulations. Compared with the 1-hop algorithm in (C. Florens and R. McEliece, Packets Distribution Algorithms for Sensor Networks, IEEE INFOCOM, San Diego, pp. 1063–1072, 2003), the TDMA scheduling algorithm for the general k-hop network proposed in our paper is more universal and has more practical application value.