Data merge: A data aggregation technique for wireless sensor networks

The Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have limited power and communication capabilities, combined with the requirement for long network lifetime. To increase it, methods to reduce energy consumption are highly required. To achieve this goal, we study a data aggregation technique without size reduction, i.e. data merge. It is a generic technique, since it is also usable in applications with heterogeneous data and requirements for high accuracy. This study presents the impact of the data merge technique on WSNs applications executed under various realistic data flow scenarios, traffic loads and wait time intervals. Our results show significant reductions in both packet loss and radio energy consumption.