Zone-Based Energy Aware Data Collection Protocol for WSNs

In this paper we propose the Zone-based Energy Aware data coLlection (ZEAL) protocol. ZEAL is designed to be used in agricultural applications for wireless sensor networks. In these type of applications, all data is often routed to a single point (named “sink” in sensor networks). The overuse of the same routes quickly depletes the energy of the nodes closer to the sink. In order to minimize this problem, ZEAL automatically creates zones (groups of nodes) independent from each other based on the trajectory of one or more mobile sinks. In this approach the sinks collects data queued in sub-sinks in each zone. Unlike existing protocols, ZEAL accomplish its routing tasks without using GPS modules for location awareness or synchronization mechanisms. Additionally, ZEAL provides an energy saving mechanism on the network layer that puts zones to sleep when there are no mobile sinks nearby. To evaluate ZEAL, it is compared with the Maximum Amount Shortest Path (MASP) protocol. Our simulations using the ns-3 network simulator show that ZEAL is able to collect a larger number of packets with significantly less energy in the same amount of time.

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