A routing algorithm for mobile multiple sinks in large-scale wireless sensor networks

In wireless sensor networks, energy-aware and network-lifetime prolonging techniques are proposed, as the energy becomes the most valuable resource. Most of these techniques use complex calculations failing to be easy to implement. Another approach is to use mobile-sink node to enhance the performance metrics. However, these techniques are not scalable to large scale networks. Scalability of a routing protocol for wireless sensor networks is mainly affected by the topological changes and by the number of sensor nodes in the network. In large scale networks, multiple-sinks (gateways) should be used to provide scalability. In this paper, we propose that mobile multiple sink usage enhances the energy-related performance metrics in large scale networks. We use the Stateless Weight Routing with Multiple Sinks (MS-SWR) for routing. Mobile sink nodes are used to enhance the performance metrics. The performance evaluation of the proposed technique shows that mobile sink usage in MS-SWR is scalable for large scale wireless sensor networks with multiple sinks.