Energy Efficient Hop Length Optimization for Laterally Connected Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

It is well known that energy efficiency is the main concern in wireless sensor networks due to the fact that sensors are frequently too small to carry enough energy for long-term operation. Here, an energy efficient hop length optimization scheme for the sensors in a wireless sensor network is presented. Particularly, the focus of the investigation is on the lateral connection architecture between the sensors of the network. For the verification of the proposed scheme, the total energy consumption for per bit is derived and compared to the equidistance scheme. The results obtained from numerical analyses indicate that the proposed scheme significant saves total energy consumption and can elongate the lifetime of the wireless sensor network.