Data Aggregation using Difference transfer for Load Reduction in Periodic Sensor Networks

One of the basic challenges in wireless sensor networks is energy conservation. Sensor nodes are energy constrained and prudent energy usage is of utmost importance. Data aggregation aims to reduce amount of data communicated across the network without loss in information, thereby reducing the energy costs, and increasing network lifetime. In this paper, we propose a novel, simple and easy to implement method to reduce the amount of periodic data transferred from the sensor nodes to the sink. Instead of sending a set of measures at the end of every time period, we propose sending the first measure, and for every subsequent measure in that time period, we send the difference with respect to first measure. Differences are represented by a group of binary bits. Differences are also chosen in an adaptive manner in order to maintain precision between the data measured at sensor nodes and data reconstructed from binary bit patterns at sink. We evaluated our technique against two real world data-sets with vastly different properties. Results indicate 85–88.5% reduction in amount of data sent and transmission energy.