An Enhanced Energy Efficiency Tree-Based Hierarchical Routing Based on Additional Connections

Instrumented is defined as a key characteristic in the upcoming smart cites, which demands a higher Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) performance. Tree-based Hierarchical Routing (THR) is a routing protocol for WSNs static scenarios. THR hierarchically maps WSN area into a routing tree. However, fixed topology and hierarchical architecture leads to unbalanced energy overhead distribution and inflexible routes selection. To uniformly distribute routing energy overhead, reduce routing hops and extend network life cycle, we designed an enhanced THR routing protocol based on additional connections such as Neighbors, Brothers and Nephews. Based on these connections, three actions were introduced which are Shortcut, Overhead Balancing and Adoption. A simulation for different network loads on OMNet++4.1 is issued, and realized this THR routing in Chipcon SmartRF04?EB embedded boards based on Zigbee in a point-to-point topology. According to the simulation results and experiment data, this proposal obviously improved the latency performance, reduced energy overhead and extended the network’s life cycle.