A novel non-uniform node distribution strategy for wireless sensor networks

In wireless sensor networks, sensor nodes need to send sensing data to the sink node. Due to the limitation on the communication distance, some sensor nodes far from the sink node cannot send their data directly the sink node and need other nodes to relay their data to the sink node. The nodes near the sink node have to spend much energy to relay the data sent by the far nodes, and are, therefore, dying faster. When the near nodes all die, no data can be sent to the sink and the sensor network stops working, which is called the energy hole. We propose a novel non-uniform strategy to distribute the sensor nodes, which appropriately arranges the node density based on the distance to the sink node and can efficiently avoid the energy hole. This strategy is simulated on an NS2 platform. Simulation results confirms the proposed strategy can significantly extend the life of the sensor network, substantially increase the total transmitted data amount and avoid the energy hole.