Analysis of Gradient-Based Routing Protocols in Sensor Networks

Sensor networks may be most widely used for habitat and environmental monitoring where the attached tiny sensors sample various physical phenomena. Moreover, many of the physical phenomena follow the diffusion property with distance, i.e., f(d) ∝ 1 dα , where d is the distance from the point having the maximum effect of an event, f(d) is the magnitude of the event’s effect and α is the diffusion parameter that depends on the type of the effect; e.g., α = 2 for light, and α = 1 for heat. The routing protocols used in the sensor networks for habitat and environmental monitoring applications can exploit this natural information gradient to efficiently forward queries towards the source.