ENERGY AWARE AND LOAD BALANCING GEOGRAPHIC ROUTING IN WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of thousands of tiny nodes having the capability of sensing, computation, and wireless communications. The major challenges faced by wireless sensor networks are energy-efficiency (as WSNs are battery powered and batteries are not chargeable and replaceable) and self-organization (as nodes may disappear). A thorough literature study of routing protocols for WSNs presents a classification for the various approaches. Each of the routing algorithms has the common objective of trying to get better throughput and to extend the lifetime of the sensor network. In this thesis work geographic routing in WSN is mainly focused for energy issues and a location based WSN routing protocol ELBGR (Energy aware & Load Balancing Geographic Routing) is presented that features the energy efficiency, load balancing and self organization of the wireless sensor networks. This protocol extends the lifetime of the network and balances the energy consumption of the nodes within the network. This algorithm works on forwarding rule based on neighbor’s energy levels, packet reception rate and the location. Each node knows geographic location, energy levels and PRR of its neighbors. The proposed algorithm consists of two phases; initially it selects the Forwarding Nodes Set (FNS) from all neighbors and then finally selects the Optimal Forwarding Node (OFN) from FNS for forwarding purpose. The ELBGR is compared with Greedy algorithm, EAGR, EEAR and HHEAA for its performance and the simulations results depicted that the proposed algorithm (ELBGR) gives better performance in terms of higher success rate, throughput and less number of dead nodes and it effectively increases the lifetime of the sensor networks.