An Energy-Efficient Hybrid Data Collection Scheme in Wireless Sensor Networks

We propose an energy-efficient hybrid data collection architecture based on controllably mobile infrastructure for a class of applications in which sensor networks provide both low-priority and high-priority data. High-priority data require a data delivery scheme with low latency and high fidelity. Meanwhile low-priority data may tolerate high-latency data delivery. Our approach exploits the design of a network that supports a hybrid data delivery scheme to enhance the network performance and reduces total network energy usage. In our system design two delivery schemes are deployed for purposes of comparison. The first is the traditional ad hoc approach to deliver high-priority data with high fidelity and low latency. The second presents a controllable infrastructure in the sensor field, which acts as low-priority data collection agent. Through simulations, we show that our proposed approach can provide substantial energy saving in this class of sensor application compared to the traditional multihop approach used alone.