Improving energy-awareness in selective reprogramming of WSNs

Abstract

Saving energy is considered one of the main challenges in wireless sensor networks (WSNs), being radio activities such as message transmission/reception and idle listening the main factors of energy consumption in the nodes. These activities increase with the increase of reliability level required, which is usually achieved through flooding strategies. Procedures such as remote WSNs reprogramming require high-level of reliability leading to an increase in radio activity and, consequently, waste of energy. This energy waste is magnified when dealing with selective reprogramming where only few nodes need to receive the code updates. The main focus of this paper is on improving energy efficiency during selective reprogramming of WSNs, taking advantage of wise routing, decreasing the nodes' idle listening periods and using multiple cooperative senders instead of a single one. The proposed strategies are a contribution toward deploying energy-aware selective reprogramming in WSNs.