Efficient power-consumption-based load-sharing topology control protocol for harsh environments in wireless sensor networks

Energy conservation and network performance are critical issues in wireless sensor networks. The authors present a novel efficient communication topology control protocol, called quorum-based load-sharing control protocol (QLSCP). QLSCP is a quorum-based communication protocol, which chooses appropriate communication nodes, adjusts the service loads of critical nodes and performs adaptive sleep management. QLSCP is suitable for harsh environments without a central control server calculating the locations of sensors, using the factor of the remaining power to build the system topology. The proposed protocol divides the topology operation into topology formation, adjustment and execution phases. The topology formation phase builds the backbone of an enhanced tree. In the topology adjustment phase, the enhanced tree is adjusted by an optimal balance of critical nodes in the backbone. In the topology execution phase, the efficient surplus-energy consuming (ESC) mechanism is proposed to efficiently exhaust the energy of each node. The ESC mechanism is designed to efficiently exhaust the latest remaining electronic power of sensor nodes. Simulation results of QLSCP demonstrate that it efficiently achieves to prolong system lifetime in harsh environments.