Energy Conservation in Sensor and Sensor-Actuator Networks

Recent technological advances have enabled the development of low-cost, low-power, and multifunctional sensor devices. Large collections of these devices organized in multihop sensor networks have the potential to revolutionize the way humans can “sense” the physical world. Owing to their theoretical challenges and myriads of practical applications, wireless sensor networks are emerging as one of the priority research and development areas. Applications of sensor networks are envisioned primarily for monitoring the environment (e.g., motion, target tracking, fire detection, chemicals, temperature, etc.) or as embedded systems (e.g., biomedical sensor engineering, and smart homes). Sensors may measure distance, direction, speed, humidity, wind speed, soil makeup, temperature, chemicals, light, vibrations, motion, seismic data, acoustic data, strain, torque, load, pressure, and so on. Sensors provide radically new communication and networking paradigms. They have small size, low battery capacity, nonrenewable power