WCDS-DCR: an energy-efficient data-centric routing scheme for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of battery-constrained sensors often deployed in harsh environments with little to no human control, thereby necessitating scalable and energy-efficient techniques. For this reason, self-organizing and maintenance mechanisms are very appealing to the design of WSNs. In this paper, we propose a routing scheme, called WCDSDCR, that meets these design requirements. WCDSDCR is a fully distributed, data-centric, routing technique that makes use of an underlying clustering structure induced by the construction of WCDS (Weakly Connected Dominating Set) to prolong network lifetime. It aims at extending network lifetime through the use of data aggregation (based on the elimination of redundant data packets) by some particular nodes. It also utilizes both the energy availability information and the distances (in number of hops) from sensors to the sink in order to make hop-by-hop, energy-aware, routing decisions. Simulation results show that our solution is scalable, and outperforms existing schemes in terms of network lifetime.