Energy-aware self-organization algorithms for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) have received much attention during the last few years especially with regard to energy consumption and scalability. In this paper, we will focus on mechanisms which may be implemented for small WSNs. So, in the present work, we design energy-aware self-organization algorithms for WSNs in such a context. These algorithms can be used to design effective and adaptive protocols. The first protocol concerns the initialization or the setting up of the network topology under a chain form. The second one (steady-state protocol) implements the communication part or the information exchange between the different nodes of the chain. Our algorithms were dimensioned and validated by an analytical model. We also perform a detailed study of these algorithms by using TOSSIM, a simulation environment for TinyOS, the operating system for the Berkeley sensor nodes. Finally, we achieve an experimental test using Tmote Sky nodes, a popular commercial hardware platform for wireless sensor systems. The results emphasize the interest of the proposed algorithms.