HDA: A hierarchical data aggregation scheme for sensor networks

Sensor networks are wireless networks that can obtain and process physical world information from scattered sensor devices. Due to the limited power, slow processor, and less memory in each device, routing protocols of sensor networks must be designed carefully. Recently, a data-centric scheme called directed diffusion has been proposed to provide efficient data transmission over sensor networks. In this paper, we enhance this scheme by a hierarchical data aggregation technique (HDA). Experiments demonstrate that our enhanced scheme can save transmission energy up to 50% over directed diffusion, without any reliability or delivery efficiency being compromised. At the same time, our scheme can facilitate greater data-level aggregation in data-centric routing.