Energy consumption is one of the most important design constraints when building a wireless sensor and actuator network since each device in the network has a limited battery capacity, and prolonging the lifetime of the network depends on saving energy. Overcoming this challenge requires a smart and reconfigurable network energy management strategy. The Software-Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm aims at building a flexible and dynamic network structure, especially in wireless sensor networks. In this study, we propose an SDN-enabled wireless sensor and actuator network architecture that has a new routing discovery mechanism. To build a flexible and energyefficient network structure, a new routing decision approach that uses a fuzzy-based Dijkstra's algorithm is developed in the study. The proposed architecture can change the existing path during data transmission, which is the key property of our model and is achieved through the adoption of the SDN approach. All the components and algorithms of the proposed system are modeled and simulated using the Riverbed Modeler software for more realistic performance evaluation. The results indicate that the proposed SDN-enabled structure with fuzzy-based Dijkstra's algorithm outperforms the one using the regular Dijkstra's and the ZigBee-based counterpart, in terms of the energy consumption ratio, and the proposed architecture can provide an effective cluster routing while prolonging the network lifetime.
KEYWORDSInternet of Things (IoT), routing discovery, Software-Defined Networking, wireless sensor and actuator networks, WSANFlow (QoS), and application-specific requirements when determining the optimum path between the source and destination devices. Since prolonging the network lifetime is a crucial design constraint for WSAN, building an energy-aware routing discovery algorithm is a major challenge. 3,8,9 Another problem that must be faced when dealing with a WSAN structure is lack of flexibility in such network operations as establishment, management, and configuration. In the last few years, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) has attracted growing interest in the computer network communities as a new solution for a simpler, more flexible, and less overworked network control. 1,4 In the SDN architecture, which aims at separating data and control planes, all the control functions of the network are performed by a centralized device, which is referred to as the SDN Controller (SDNC). Network devices in the data plane are responsible only for forwarding the data using the related entries in their flow tables.The primary goal of this research study is to implement a new energy-aware and flexible WSAN structure with an effective routing discovery mechanism. To find effective solutions to the abovementioned problems of the WSAN structure, we proposed an SDN-enabled WSAN architecture that has a new routing discovery mechanism. To be able to build a flexible and energy-efficient network structure, a new routing decision approach that uses a fuzzy-based Dijkstra's algorithm is...
