k-DAG Based Lifetime Aware Data Collection in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks need to be organized for efficient data collection and lifetime maximization. In this paper, we propose a novel routing structure, namely k-DAG, to balance the load of the base station's neighbours while providing the worst-case latency guarantee for data collection, and a distributed algorithm for construction a k-DAG based on a SPD (Shortest Path DAG). In a k-DAG, the lengths of the longest path and the shortest path of each sensor node to the base station differ by at most k. By adding sibling edges to a SPD, our distributed algorithm allows critical nodes to have more routing choices. The simulation results show that our approach significantly outperforms the SPD-based data collection approach in both network lifetime and load balance.