Performance evaluation of data delivery approaches for wireless sensor networks

Abstract Wireless sensor networks are expected to revolutionize our abilities in sensing and controlling the physical environment. Power conservation is a primary research concern for these networks, due to the limited energy resources of the sensor nodes. In this paper we study the data delivery approaches, suitable for hierarchical cluster based wireless sensor networks. A radio energy dissipation model is used to evaluate the energy, needed for both intra-cluster and inter-cluster communication. Based on the results we analyze the performance of various combined data delivery approaches. Additionally we study the impact of the base station location and the number of sensor nodes on the energy dissipation and the network lifetime.