A Comprehensive Review and Performance Analysis of Data Gathering Algorithms for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks comprise of vast numbers of sensor nodes deployed to monitor a particular event (fire, intrusion, etc.) or measure a parameter (like temperature, pressure) value representative of the physical condition of the ambient environment. There is a growing need of using energy-efficient data gathering algorithms that can effectively aggregate the monitored/measured data from the individual sensor nodes through a properly constructed communication topology and transmit a single representative data to a control center (sink) that is typically located far away from the network field. In order to maximize node lifetime and be fair to all nodes in the network, such a communication topology has to be dynamically constructed for every round of data gathering by taking into consideration available energy levels of sensor nodes. This paper presents a comprehensive description of two broad categories of data gathering algorithms for wireless sensor networks – the classical algorithms that are not energy-aware and modern energy-aware data gathering algorithms. These algorithms can also be classified based on the communication topology they choose to construct and use for data gathering. The authors also present an extensive simulation study that demonstrates the individual as well as the comparative performance of these data gathering algorithms.