Performance Comparison of Structured Based Data Aggregation Schemes in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Data aggregation is one of the fundamental property of a Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), which is used to collect and combine useful information in a particular region of interest. However, it has been learnt from the literature review that the underlying network structure/topology significantly affects the efficiency of data aggregation solutions. From the system architectural point of view, data aggregation is an important aspect of the design and deployment of large-scale WSNs. In this paper, we investigated and analysed the existing solutions of data aggregation in WSNs and evaluated these solutions both quantitatively and qualitatively to judge their performance and suitability for large scale WSNs. For qualitative analyses, we critically analysed various schemes and compared them and presented the comparison in a tabular form. Further, we highlighted their strengths and limitations for resource-constrained WSNs. Secondly, we performed the simulation based quantitative performance comparison using the MATLAB simulation tool. Using simulation, we compared the TAG, PEGASIS and LEACH protocol, using various network parameters, including energy efficiency, network lifetime and delay. From the qualitative and quantitative analysis, it is concluded that hierarchical based clustering data aggregation protocols are best suited for resource-constrained WSN. Furthermore, the network topology has a significant impact on the data aggregation of WSNs.