Performance Evaluation of Distributed Protocols Using Different Levels of Heterogeneity Models in Wireless Sensor Networks

Most of the protocols for enhancing the lifetime of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are of a homogeneous nature in which all sensors have equal amount of energy level. In this paper, we study the effect of heterogeneity on the homogeneous protocols. The ALBPS and ADEEPS are the two important homogeneous protocols. We incorporate heterogeneity to these protocols, which consists of 2-level, 3-level and multi-level heterogeneity. We simulate and compare the performance of the ALBPS and ADEEPS protocols in homogeneous and heterogeneous environment. The simulation results indicate that heterogeneous protocols prolong the network lifetime as compared to the homogeneous protocols. Furthermore, as the level of heterogeneity increases, the lifetime of the network also increases.