Controlled potential-based routing for large-scale wireless sensor networks

Improving the scalability of wireless sensor networks is an important task, and toward this end, much research on self-organization has been conducted. However, the problem remains that much larger networks based on pure self-organization cannot be guaranteed to behave as desired. In this paper, we propose a controlled potential-based routing protocol. This protocol is based on a novel concept: a "controlled self-organization scheme", which is a self-organization scheme accompanied by control from outside the system. This scheme ensures desired network behavior by controlling a portion of nodes operated in self-organization. Through simulation experiments with a multi-sink network, we show that traffic loads can be equalized among heterogeneously distributed sink nodes, and moreover, that load balancing among the relay nodes can bring about a 138% extension of network lifetime.