An Energy-Efficient Data Collection Method for Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), some sensor nodes transmit their acquired data to a far distant base station directly or by linking several relay nodes. WSNs might not be able to operate if a sensor node completely consumes its battery power and does not perform its designated operation. Semiconductor technology drives sensor networks to collect video and audio data as well as environmental data. Therefore, energy is one of the most important resources in wireless multimedia sensor networks (WMSNs), and clustering is proposed to reduce energy consumption. When a mobile sink is used, a lot of energy is saved, and the lifetime of the network can be extended because the sensor nodes do not need to transmit multimedia data to a far distant base station. We propose an energy-efficient data collection method to extend the lifetime of networks that use a mobile sink. By using the neighborhood density clustering method and defining an optimal path for the mobile sink, the proposed method extends the life of the WMSN. Simulation results show that the proposed method increases the lifetime of WMSNs by up to 15 rounds, compared with LEACH. And data collection time is decreased owing to the predefined path for the mobile sink.