Analysis of Optimized Aggregation Timing in Wireless Sensor Networks

In a wireless sensor network (WSN) each sensor node deals with numerous sensing data elements. For the sake of energy efficiency and network lifetime, sensing data must be handled effectively. A technique used for this is data aggregation. Sending/receiving data involves numerous steps such as MAC layer control packet handshakes and route path setup, and these steps consume energy. Because these steps are involved in all data communication, the total cost increases are related to the counts of data sent/received. Therefore, many studies have proposed sending combined data, which is known as data aggregation. Very effective methods to aggregate sensing data have been suggested, but there is no means of deciding how long the sensor node should wait for aggregation. This is a very important issue, because the wait time affects the total communication cost and data reliability. There are two types of data aggregation; the data counting method and the time waiting method. However, each has weaknesses in terms of the delay. A hybrid method can be adopted to alleviate these problems. But, it cannot provide an optimal point of aggregation. In this paper, we suggest a stochastic-based data aggregation scheme, which provides the cost (in terms of communication and delay) optimal aggregation point. We present numerical analysis and results.