Design of timeout-based wireless microsensor network protocols: energy and latency considerations

Recent wireless networked sensors revolutionise information gathering and processing for emerging industrial applications. Dynamically managed network topologies and protocols, especially, provide more flexible leverage to the networking applications constrained by limited energy and system latency. For example, increase in number of hops in ad hoc sensor network, in general, can reduce the network energy consumption, but it also increases network latency. In order to reduce the overall network energy consumption and end-to-end response latency, this research proposes a new sensor network protocol based on Timeout-based Information Forwarding (TIF) protocol. The TIF protocol is based on a geometry-specific data forwarding logic with a multi-hop communication method. Communication energy consumption and network latency of the TIF protocol are analysed to provide design guidelines for the emerging sensor network systems. The performance of TIF has been evaluated through specific simulations, applying the Teamwork Integration Evaluator (TIE).