A Cooperative Communication Model Tailored for Energy Balance in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are characterized by their capacity of monitoring the environment, gathering and sharing information. Nodes in a WSN usually cooperate in the task of forwarding the sensed data to a sink node for later retrieval and analysis. The success of this task depends on the availability of efficient routes that meet the application requirements. As topology may change overtime, alternatives to improve and maintain network connectivity are highly desired. In this context, Cooperative Communication (CC) emerged as an alternative to improve network connectivity. Despite its benefits, CC-links are known to have higher energy demands as compared to traditional, direct, links. In particular, CC-links require the source node to expend more power than others nodes, shortening their life span. The main contribution of this paper is to propose a new Cooperative Communication model, capable of increasing the energy balance of the CC-links while improving network connectivity. Simulation results show that, compared to other CC schemes, the source node of a Cooperative Communication reduces the amount of expended energy by 68% in the evaluated settings.