Proposition and Real-Time Implementation of an Energy-Aware Routing Protocol for a Software Defined Wireless Sensor...

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Network Engineering

Background:

• Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are crucial for monitoring physical and environmental conditions across diverse applications.
• Limited power capacity of sensor nodes is a primary challenge, restricting WSN performance and functionality.
• Traditional WSNs face limitations in dynamic solutions due to constrained functional capabilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address energy consumption challenges in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs).
• To leverage Software Defined Networking (SDN) principles for developing energy-efficient WSN solutions.
• To propose and evaluate an energy-aware multihop routing protocol (EASDN) for Software Defined Wireless Sensor Networks (SDWSN).

Main Methods:

• An energy-aware multihop routing protocol (EASDN) was designed for SDWSN.
• A test bed was developed using Raspberry Pi for real-world evaluation.
• Performance was compared against existing energy-efficient routing protocols and traditional source routing.

Main Results:

• The EASDN protocol demonstrated improved network lifetime.
• Significant reductions in average energy consumption were observed.
• Enhanced packet delivery ratio and reduced average delay were achieved.

Conclusions:

• The proposed EASDN protocol effectively conserves energy in WSNs.
• SDN capabilities offer a viable framework for energy-efficient WSN design.
• Experimental validation confirms the protocol's promising performance metrics.