Exploiting Platform Heterogeneity in Wireless Sensor Networks for Cooperative Data Processing

In wireless sensor networks, nodes are often fitted with low-power components to allow for a long node lifetime when operated on batteries. However, these available resources can be insufficient to perform sophisticated data processing on a local scale, necessitating the transmission of all sensor readings to an external sink. These transmissions are expensive both in terms of delay and energy, and thus undesirable. To alleviate the situation, we propose the use of a heterogeneous sensor network with higher-capacity processing nodes that allow to perform more complex data processing operations within the sensor network. Estimates of the energy consumptions confirm that employing a heterogeneous sensor network can preserve energy and thus lead to an extended lifetime of the network.