Method and apparatus for battery-aware dynamic bandwidth allocation for groups of wireless sensor nodes in a wireless sensor network

A method and apparatus that allocates bandwidth among wireless sensor nodes in wireless sensor groups in a wireless sensor network (WSN) is disclosed. The method may include forming a plurality of wireless sensor node groups from a plurality of wireless sensor nodes based on battery levels of the wireless senor nodes, allocating transmission time slots for the wireless sensor nodes in each of the wireless sensor node groups based on at least one channel quality metric, determining average battery levels for each of the wireless sensor node groups and average battery level of all of the wireless sensor nodes, determining differences between the average battery levels of each of the wireless sensor node groups and the average battery level of all of the wireless sensor nodes, wherein if any difference in the average battery levels is above a predetermined threshold, regrouping the plurality of wireless sensor nodes according to the battery levels of the plurality wireless sensor nodes to minimize any variance in average battery level across all of the wireless sensor node groups.