MobiRoute: Routing Towards a Mobile Sink for Improving Lifetime in Sensor Networks

Improving network lifetime is a fundamental challenge of wireless sensor networks. One possible solution consists in making use of mobile sinks. Whereas theoretical analysis shows that this approach does indeed benefit network lifetime, practical routing protocols that support sink mobility are still missing. In this paper, in line with our previous efforts, we investigate the approach that makes use of a mobile sink for balancing the traffic load and in turn improving network lifetime. We engineer a routing protocol, MobiRoute, that effectively supports sink mobility. Through intensive simulations in TOSSIM with a mobile sink and an implementation of MobiRoute, we prove the feasibility of the mobile sink approach by demonstrating the improved network lifetime in several deployment scenarios.