Workload-aware Tree Construction Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks play a vital role in applications like disaster management and human relief, habitat monitoring, studying the weather and eco systems, etc. Since the location of deployment of these WSNs is usually remote, the source of energy is restricted to battery. A Significant amount of work has been done by researchers in the past to achieve energy efficiency in WSNs. In this paper we propose a scheme to optimize the power utilization in a WSN. Many of the WSN applications form a tree topology for communication. In a WSN, that adopts tree topology, it is observed that the nodes at higher levels of the tree tend to consume more power when compared to those at lower levels. In our proposed workload-aware query/result routing tree construction scheme, we construct the final routing tree by keeping in mind the workload of nodes at various levels of the tree. This way, the tree construction takes place with workload at each level being evenly distributed among the nodes at that level. The proposed approach not only increases the lifetime of the network, but also utilizes the battery power optimally. Simulation results show a considerable increase in the lifetime, and effectiveness of the wireless senor network, as a result of applying our proposed tree construction technique.