Using Density-based d-Hop Connected d-Dominating Sets Routing Scheme to Achieve Load Balancing for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Due to the energy limitation, sensor networks may schedule sensor activities so that some nodes may enter the sleeping mode to minimize energy consumption. However, sensor networks may face the constraints about sensing coverage introduced by the scheduling. From the coverage perspective, it is not always preferable to use short path for routing, especially when communications only happen among few nodes. We propose a density-based d-hop connected d-dominating sets routing algorithm which may evenly distribute energy consumption to the whole network and, hence, prolong the lifetime. We also prove the approach can be recovered within d hops of the failed d-dominating node. Our simulation results show that our approach can evenly distribute energy consumption when communications only happen among few nodes.