Wireless sensor networks - Routing impact on energy distribution and energy hole formation

In this paper we investigate the impact of different routing techniques on energy consumption in sensor networks with a central node. When multi-hop transmissions are used the sensors stationed closer to the central node will have to relay a large amount of traffic and expend their batteries faster. This leads to the "energy hole" problem ultimately resulting in reduced network life. We use a sensor network simulator to test the effectiveness of several routing techniques for homogenous networks and compare them to heterogenous networks using relay nodes to determine the best approach in terms of network life.