Lifetime Maximization in Wireless Sensor Networks by Distributed Binary Search

Abstract

Abstract. We consider the problem of determining the transmission power assignment that maximizes the lifetime of a data-gathering wireless sensor network with stationary nodes and static transmission power levels. We present a simple and efficient distributed algorithm for this task that works by establishing the minimum power level at which the network stays connected. The algorithm is based on a binary search over the range of feasible transmission power levels and does not require prior knowledge of network topology. We study the performance of the resulting BSpan protocol by network simulations and compare the number of control messages required by BSpan to two other recently proposed methods, the Distributed Min-Max Tree (DMMT) and Maximum Lifetime Spanner (MLS) algorithms. We find that BSpan outperforms both DMMT and MLS significantly.