Energy Management in Wireless Sensor Networks-A Review

Wireless Sensor Networks in recent times have been intensively studied owing to their ubiquitous nature, small size and limited resources. Decreasing size along with smart technological advances have enabled them to be applied extensively ranging from ecological monitoring, target tracking to the vast fields of defence and security. Wireless Sensor Networks comprise of small sensor nodes which are networked in such a way that they are capable of sensing, processing and communicating information for human welfare. As the sensor nodes are primarily battery driven and usually operative in inaccessible areas therefore manual replacement of batteries for such kind of small devices is practically impossible. Therefore Wireless Sensor Networks face acute energy shortage which constrains their network lifetime. Lifetime Enhancement, judicious and efficient energy utilization are therefore major areas where research is going on. In this paper a comprehensive and holistic view of energy management and optimization techniques have been discussed. The goal of this paper is to analyse different approaches to energy conservation prevalent at the present time which include duty cycle, data driven and mobility based approaches. We have concluded the paper by suggesting some future research strategies for energy optimization and enhancing the life time of the network.