LEHP: Localized energy hole profiling in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) display nonuniform energy usage distribution. This is mainly induced by the sink centric traffic or by non-uniform distribution of sensing activities and manifests as energy holes throughout the WSN. Holes can threaten the availability of the WSN by network partitioning and sensing voids. They are hard to predict, and consequently, proper function of the network requires systematic maintenance. Unfortunately, existing approaches do not systematically profile holes and focus only on very specific type of holes. In this work we present new distributed energy profiling algorithms for generalized types of energy holes. The algorithms search for boundary nodes and use them as a reference to calculate the energy needs of nodes within the hole. These, when aggregated, create angular and radial energy profiles. Extensive simulations show that the algorithms, when used for WSN maintenance, significantly help to extend the lifetime of the network.