Energy Aware Optimal Routing for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a collection of autonomous devices with computational, sensing, and wireless communication capabilities. The sensor nodes are low cost, multi-functional devices that are densely deployed either inside the phenomenon or very close to it and are often powered by independent power sources. The lifetime of such sensor nodes show a strong dependence on lifetime of the power source used. So, conservation of power and hence increase the lifetime becomes an important issue in WSNs. Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks, which consumes a considerable amount of energy, offers ample scope in increasing the life time of WSNs. To address this problem an Energy Aware Optimal Routing (EAOR) algorithm, which determines the path that consumes minimum power between the source node and the destination node, is proposed here. The proposed EAOR algorithm performs better in terms of conservation of power compared to the shortest path routing algorithm. This EAOR algorithm is also validated through extensive simulation in various scenarios, like increasing the number of sensor nodes and gateway nodes. The results show that EAOR algorithm performs well for all the scenarios.