Energy efficient self-organizing control for wireless sensor networks inspired by calling behavior of frogs

One of the most challenging research tasks in the field of wireless sensor networks is controlling the power consumption of batteries and prolonging network lifetime. For sensor networks that consist of a large number of sensor nodes, research on bio-inspired self-organization methods has attracted attention due to the potential applicability of such methods. In this paper, we focus on the calling behavior of Japanese tree frogs. They are known to make calls alternately with their neighbors in order to raise the probability of mating. This behavior can be applied to phase control that realizes collision free transmission scheduling in wireless communication. These frogs also display a type of behavior known as satellite behavior, where a frog stops calling once it detects the calls of other neighboring frogs. This behavior can be applied in the design of an energy-efficient sleep control mechanism that provides adaptive operation periods. We propose a self-organizing scheduling scheme inspired by Japanese tree frog calling behavior for energy-efficient data transmission in wireless sensor networks. Simulation results show that our proposed sleep control method prolongs network lifetime by a factor of 6.7 as compared with the method without sleep control for a coverage ratio of 80%. 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.