Improving Network Lifetime by Heterogeneity in Wireless Sensor Networks

Network lifetime is an important parameter to be considered to evaluate wireless sensor network performance. Lifetime is considered in different contexts i.e. some considered network lifetime when first node dies or some percentage of nodes dies or when all the nodes deplete their energy. In WSN, energy conservation becomes important to improve network lifetime. In a network with even distribution of nodes, nodes that lie near the base station deplete their energy faster and hole is created which leads to disconnected network. Incorporating Heterogeneity in the network increases energy efficiency and improves network lifetime. Heterogeneity is included in terms of energy, links and computational resources. Finding optimal number and positions of Heterogeneous nodes to improve network performance is the main concern of this study.