An optimized forwarding protocol for lifetime extension of wireless sensor networks

Optimized routing (from source to sink) in wireless sensor networks (WSN) constitutes one of the key design issues in prolonging the lifetime of battery-limited sensor nodes. In this paper, we explore this optimization problem by considering different cost functions such as distance, remaining battery power, and link usage in selecting the next hop node among multiple candidates. Optimized selection is carried out through fuzzy inference system (FIS). Two differing algorithms are presented, namely optimized forwarding by fuzzy inference systems (OFFIS), and two-layer OFFIS (2L-OFFIS), that have been developed for flat and hierarchical networks, respectively. The proposed algorithms are compared with popular routing protocols that are considered as the closest counterparts such asminimum transmit energy (MTE) and low energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH). Simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithms in extending the WSN lifetime. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.