On the retransmission methods to prolong the lifetime of wireless sensor networks

An important issue in wireless sensor networks is the limited energy. In this paper, a linear programming network model is developed based on the retransmission scheme, to prolong the network lifetime according to the characteristic of wireless sensor network (WSN). It is well known that, in a typical WSN, the sense information varys slowly with time, so it is feasible to use the retransmission strategy to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and thus avoid network paralysis when lapses happen on all one-hop sensors. Here a linear programming based optimum algorithm is derived for repeated reception. Simulation analysis shows that the retransmission model proposed can extend network lifetime effectively, and therefore increase the amount of information collected by the base station (BS) and improve the energy efficiency of the sensor networks.