Energy Efficient In-Network Aggregation Algorithms in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

Advancement in ubiquitous networking has led to the production of wireless sensor networks, consisting of many autonomous small devices called sensor nodes, able to observe and report various real world physical phenomena with no wired infrastructure. Onetheless, this feature precisely makes these nodes energy constrained, since most of the energy is consumed in data communication. In-network processing may be regarded as an efficient technique that reduces the amount of data to be transmitted in the network. We focus on data aggregation algorithms, whose fundamental idea is to gather, combine and compress data from different sources by applying simple functions in order to reduce the traffic load, thus enhancing the network's lifetime. However, it is difficult for developers to identify data aggregation algorithms strengths and weaknesses, nor to pinpoint current open research issues to be investigated. In this paper, we propose a survey of the most energy efficient data aggregation algorithms. After reviewing over 900 papers from which we selected 15 algorithms based on the energy efficiency criteria, we classify these protocols according to the network topology, then we describe each one in order to compare them. We conclude the paper with possible future research directions for aspiring researchers and algorithm developers.