A simple energy-efficient routing algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks based on Artificial Potential Field

Routing is critical for WSNs due to the nature of multi-hop message delivery and the restricted power supply and computation capacity. Routing mechanisms with efficient power utilization and low computation complexity are of fundamental importance to meet the future application demand of WSNs. In this paper, a novel location-based routing technique, the Artificial Potential Field based Routing (APFR), is proposed. APFR establishes an Artificial Potential Field (APF) for the tagged sensor node and then uses a greedy selection algorithm to determine the next hop based on the direction obtained from the APF. In addition, a backup scheme is presented to recover the route in the case of routing voids. The advantages of APFR are three-fold. First, the routing tends to point to the areas with high node density, so the transmission load is balanced among the sensor nodes. Second, when some nodes are running out of energy, the APF will be updated and the routing will change automatically according to the new APF. Third, APFR only requires local geographic information and is of low computational complexity. The simulation results show that APFR can prolong the network lifetime and improve the routing success rate compared to other routing protocols such as GEAR and GPSR, especially for densely deployed networks.