Structure and Structure-Free Data Aggregation Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks-A Review

One of the greatest concerns in wireless sensor networks has been energy efficiency. Many solutions have traditionally been found to make the existing protocols energy efficient in different fields that employ wireless sensor networks. This concern gets more and more critical due to the energy constraints involved with the remotely deployed sensor nodes. One of the major parts of energy of the sensor nodes is used in transmitting the data from one source to another. Therefore, much research has focused on how to conserve energy while transmitting data by aggregating it in an efficient manner ever since the deployment of wireless sensor networks. In this paper a brief survey of the data aggregation protocols has been presented. An in-depth tabular overview of distinct schemes under the category of structure as well as structure free wireless sensor networks for aggregation of data has also been provided.