CREEC: Chain Routing with Even Energy Consumption

A convergecast is a popular routing scheme in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in which every sensor node periodically forwards measured data along configured routing paths to a base station (BS). Prolonging lifetimes in energy-limited WSNs is an important issue because the lifetime of a WSN influences on its quality and price. Low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) was the first attempt at solving this lifetime problem in convergecast WSNs, and it was followed by other solutions including power efficient gathering in sensor information systems (PEGASIS) and power efficient data gathering and aggregation protocol (PEDAP). Our solution-chain routing with even energy consumption (CREEC)-solves this problem by achieving longer average lifetimes using two strategies: i) Maximizing the fairness of energy distribution at every sensor node and ii) running a feedback mechanism that utilizes a preliminary simulation of energy consumption to save energy for depleted Sensor nodes. Simulation results confirm that CREEC outperforms all previous solutions such as LEACH, PEGASIS, PEDAP, and PEDAP-power aware (PA) with respect to the first node death and the average lifetime. CREEC performs very well at all WSN sizes, BS distances and battery capacities with an increased convergecast delay.