Reducing the communication range or turning nodes off? An initial evaluation of topology control strategies for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

AbstractTopology control-TC is a strategy used to save energy in wireless sensor
networks. Topology construction-TCn is the area of TC that studies the reduction of the network topology, while maintaining characteristics like connectivity and coverage. There are two main strategies to reduce the topology of a network: reducing the transmission power, like the KNEIGH-Tree, and decreasing the number of active nodes in the network, like A3 and A3Cov. Both strategies reduce the energy consumption and, therefore, increase the network lifetime; however, these strategies have not been compared against one another. This paper compares the three protocols mentioned before in terms of the network lifetime and coverage. The results show that in dense networks, the A3 and A3Cov protocols extend the lifetime of the network more than twice than that of the offered by the KNEIGH-Tree protocol.