Adaptive Power-Control Based Energy-Efficient Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

Efficient utilization of energy is a hot topic of research in the field of wireless sensor networks. Limited battery resource at a sensor node coupled with the hostile multi-path fading propagation environment makes the task of the network to provide reliable data services with an enhanced lifetime, challenging. In order to achieve this goal, a number of efforts have been made by the researchers; one such key strategy is an energy-aware routing embedded with transmission power control mechanism. In this strategy, every sensor node in a network transmits at a lowest possible power level to maintain on one hand reliable wireless links with other neighboring nodes and saves the energy on the other. In this paper, we propose a novel routing technique embedded with transmission power control for wireless sensor networks while considering a realistic radio fading environment. The proposed strategy considers channel fading in the propagation environment and mitigate it through transmission power control mechanism. The main aim of the proposed protocol, APCEER, is to reduce the communication interference among sensor nodes, establish energy-efficient routes from source to sink and thus, to save energy of each and every sensor node in the network. This results in an overall increase of network lifetime, transmission throughput, energy saving and reduce communication interference and collision. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the existing energy-aware routing strategies that are not equipped with a power control mechanism. The proposed protocol thus utilizes in urban applications of wireless sensor networks that need ultra efficient utilization of energy by power-constrained nodes operating in severe fading conditions.