A Difference Fitting Residuals algorithm for lossless data compression in wireless sensor nodes

Efficient utilization of energy is a core area of research in wireless sensor networks. Data compression methods to reduce the number of bits to be transmitted by the communication module will significantly reduce the energy requirement and increase the lifetime of the sensor node. Through analysis the probability distribution of sensor data and a classic compression algorithm named ND-Encoding, this paper proposed a new algorithm specifically designed for lossless data compression in sensor nodes called Difference Fitting Residuals compression algorithm. The proposed algorithm will calculate the linear fitting values of sensor data´s differences and then calculate the fitting residuals which will be input to an entropy encoder to achieve data compression. Compared with two typical lossless compression algorithms, the proposed algorithm indicated better compression ratios, despite a less computational effort.