Saving energy and improving communications using cooperative group-based Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) can be used in many real applications (environmental monitoring, habitat monitoring, health, etc.). The energy consumption of each sensor should be as lower as possible, and methods for grouping nodes can improve the network performance. In this work, we show how organizing sensors in cooperative groups can reduce the global energy consumption of the WSN. We will also show that a cooperative group-based network reduces the number of the messages transmitted inside the WSNs, which implieasa reduction of energy consumed by the whole network, and, consequently, an increase of the network lifetime. The simulations will show how the number of groups improves the network performance.