A Survey on Energy Efficient Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are a web of sensor nodes with a set of processor and limited memory unit embedded in it. Reliable routing of packets from the sensor node to its base station is the most important task for the networks. In wireless sensor networks, routing is bit more complex than other wired or wireless networks. The routing protocols applied for the other networks cannot be used here due to its battery powered nodes. Unlike other wireless networks routing in WSN should be the energy efficient one. This paper gives an overview of the different routing strategies used in wireless sensor networks and gives a brief working model of energy efficient routing protocols in WSN. We have also compared these different routing protocols based on metrics such as mobility support, stability, overlapping. The study concludes with the recommendations to the future direction in the energy efficiency model for the sensor networks.