AN ENERGY EFFICIENT ROUTING ALGORITHM BASED ON PRIORITY FOR WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK

Abstract

An efficient design for a Wireless Sensor Network has become a leading area of research nowadays. We have application of Wireless Sensor Networks in many areas like health care, remote area monitoring, Environmental sensing, Agriculture sector, Military operations. There are large number of challenges in Wireless Sensor network because of the areas in which these networks are deployed and the limited resources that we have in WSN. One of the main challenge in WSN is the efficient use of the limited power supply. All the protocols in WSN should be designed by keeping limited power supply constraint in mind. In this project, we intend to enhance an Energy efficient protocol in Wireless sensor network. In WSN, the nodes keep on sensing and reporting the data to the Base Station. In hierarchical routing method, not all nodes directly communicate with the base station, rather nodes are grouped together to form clusters. Within each cluster some special node is chosen called cluster heads which send data to base stations. Cluster head nodes collect the data from all its cluster nodes, process the data if required, combine the data and send to base station. Cluster head nodes perform more task, thus consume more energy. To enhance the lifetime of network, load of being cluster head must be distributed properly among all nodes. One such algorithm is suggested, in which both energy of node and its distance is taken into consideration for selection of cluster head, which is discussed in detail later in the report. Also, the priority is assigned to the data sensed by the nodes in wireless sensor network. The regular data will be sent to the base station with priority bit set as low or 0 while the data which is urgent/critical will be reported with priority bit set as High or 1. By this method, Base station will get informed about the regular data and the urgent or priority data and based on this information further action can be taken at the base station. This proposed solution is implemented using Network Simulator tool, NS2, and the results are provided later in this report.