Data dissemination protocol with hole masking algorithm in grid-based wireless sensor networks

The failure of sensor nodes caused by energy exhaustion or physical destruction may lead to the void areas, so called holes. The hole problem becomes another difficult issue faced by data dissemination protocol based on geographic routing. Most of the existing schemes for the issue tend to construct a static detour path to bypass a hole. The static detour path may lead to uneven energy consumption of the nodes on the perimeter of the hole. It results in more energy consumption or data collision on the boundary node of holes, and finally cannot balance energy consumption. In this paper, we propose the hole masking algorithm to handle various holes in wireless sensor networks. Then the proposed protocol can reduce energy consumption avoiding complex computation for obtaining hole information and increase the lifetime of wireless sensor networks by dynamic node selection in a grid cell. Simulation results present our protocol is superior to the previous works in terms of energy consumption, average delivery delay and show reliable data delivery under various holes.