Hybrid Heterogeneous Routing Scheme for Improved Network Performance in WSNs for Animal Tracking

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) experiences several technical challenges such as limited energy, short transmission range, limited storage capacities, and limited computational capabilities. Moreover, the sensor nodes are deployed randomly and massively over an inaccessible or hostile region. Hence WSNs are vulnerable to adversaries and are usually operated in a dynamic and unreliable environment. Animal tracking using wireless sensors is one such application of WSN where power management plays a vital role. In this paper, an energy-efficient hybrid routing method is proposed that divides the whole network into smaller regions based on sensor location and chooses the routing scheme accordingly. The sensor network consists of a base station (BS) located at a distant place outside the network, and a relay node is placed inside the network for direct communications from nodes nearer to it. The nodes are further divided into two categories based on the supplied energy; such that the ones located far away from BS and relay have higher energy than the nodes nearer to them. The network performance of the proposed method is compared with protocols like LEACH, SEP, and SNRP, considering parameters like stability period, throughput and energy consumption. Simulation result shows that the proposed method outperforms other methods with better network performance.