Energy Saving Performance Analysis of Hierarchical Data Aggregation Protocols Used in Wireless Sensor Network

Since the inception of wireless sensor networks (WSN), many protocols have been designed and developed to address various issues. Energy efficient data aggregation has been a challenge for researchers working in this field. In this work, we have investigated the performance of some state-of-the-art hierarchical data aggregation protocols used in WSN from the energy conservation perspective when information is gathered at the sink node. The primary objective of data aggregation is to gather and aggregate data in a way that the network lifetime is enhanced as well as power is conserved. Two well-accepted aggregation protocols namely low energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) and power efficient gathering in sensor information systems (PEGASIS) are considered for evaluation on a common network scenario. Analysis of these protocols has been done through extensive simulation and is found that the simulation results give an insight into theoretical properties only without providing enough information regarding its practical performance. We conclude with possible future research directions.