Maintain Load Balancing in Wireless Sensor Networks Using Virtual Grid Based Routing Protocol

Abstract

Based on the wide variety of applications of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in different aspects of life, research focusing on WSNs have rapidly increased in the recent few years. Different challenges shorten the operation of sensor nodes over the targeted area for different reasons such as danger, inhospitality, and limited energy resources of the surrounding area. One major issue is the energy required to operate the individual sensor nodes that definitely affect the operation of the entire sensor network. Accordingly, energy consumption must be minimized as possible which requires to compromise sensor network activities as well as network operation. One fundamental solution commonly used for minimizing the energy consumption in each sensor node is using an energy-efficient routing algorithm. In this study, a routing approach depends on the grid topology of the sensor network is presented to maximize the lifetime of WSNs via balancing a load of data traffic among sensor nodes as evenly as possible. The evaluation process is done using CFDASC routing protocol since it represents the most comparable and related algorithm among previous work. Simulation results prove that the presented approach outperformance CFDASC algorithm in terms of network stability and load balancing of the entire network.