Analysis of Hops Length in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are provided with a limited source of power. The lifetime of such networks is an overwhelming matter in most network applications. This lifetime depends strongly on how efficiently such energy is distributed over the nodes especially during transmitting and receiving data. Each node may route messages to destination nodes either through short hops or long hops. Optimizing the length of these hops may save energy, and therefore extend the lifetime of WSNs. In this paper, we propose a theorem to optimize the hop’s length so to make WSN power consumption minimal. The theorem establishes a simple condition on hop’s length range. Computer simulation when performing such condition on Mica2 sensors and Mica2dot sensors reveals good performance regarding WSNs energy consumption.