Load sensitive topology control: Towards minimum energy consumption in dense ad hoc sensor networks

Sensor networks are usually composed of tiny and resource constraint devices, which make energy conservation a vital concern of their design and deployment. Reducing energy consumption has been addressed through different aspects till now. Topology Control (TC) is a well-known approach which tries to determine transmission ranges of nodes to optimize their energy utilization while keeping some network properties like connectivity. However, in current TC schemes, the transmission range of each node is mostly accounted as the exclusive estimator for its energy consumption while ignoring the amount of data it sends or relays. In this paper, we deliberately reformulate the problem of topology control, regarding both network load and transmission range parameters. Our approach is particularly formulated for dense sensor networks with one or more base stations. The problem is considered in three different environmental conditions and then, proper mathematical relations are presented to find the optimum solutions. Finally, we show the advantages of our proposal through experiments.