An overview of performance trade-off mechanisms in routing protocol for green wireless sensor networks

Along with the development of the technologies of various kinds, wireless sensor networks are gradually entering into the practicalization phase. Therefore, whether its performance is good or not will directly affect the use of WSNs. Routing is one of the most important technologies. In addition, the routing performance is a significant part of the evaluation index system of wireless sensor networks. Energy efficiency is focused on in the traditional routing protocols, while quality of service (QoS) (i.e., delay, reliability, robustness) becomes important in practical application. Routing protocols should not only ensure the energy efficiency, but also realize QoS performances. As a consequence how to achieve the equilibrium between energy efficiency and other performances is the issue to be solved. In this paper, some performance trade-off mechanisms and methods that have existed in the routing protocols of wireless sensor networks are analyzed and summarized. At the same time, the related technical features of the routing protocols are mentioned, the purpose of which is to provide a better understanding of the current research issues within the field of performance trade-off mechanisms and to guide the researcher to develop the routing protocols with better performance in order to fulfill the actual requirements.