Specifying the Optimal Transmission Manner in WSNs: Analysis and Simulation

Employing multi-hop transmission (MH) in wireless sensor networks achieves the uniform distribution of energy cost between nodes. However, the minimum energy cost isn’t completely guaranteed. Therefore, in several cases, the total energy cost might be greater than direct transmission (DT). In this paper, we are interested in determining the factors that influence choosing the efficient transmission manner. It’s assumed that there is a judging metric, called characteristic distance \(d_{char}\) that specifies whether to use DT or MH. If the transmission distance is greater than \(d_{char}\) MH is used, else DT is preferred. The previous conclusion is obtained through the following three steps: The first step is to analyze the relation between the radio hardware parameters and the consumed energy of the different transmission techniques. Hence, a general law for \(d_{char}\) will be deduced. Secondly, a supplementary analysis will be performed to understand the effect of these parameters on \(d_{char}\). Finally, a great concern is paid to estimate efficient design of cluster size in cluster-based routing protocols. Therefore, \(d_{char}\) and the radio hardware parameters are exploited in specifying the optimum size of the cluster. The proposed design consumes the least energy cost and minimizes the variance of nodes residual energy in comparison with DT, MH and normal clustering. This helps in avoiding energy hole problem and enhancing the network lifetime.