Design of energy acquisition prediction model for efficient and secure opportunistic routing in EH WSNs

Abstract

The tremendous advancements in the area of wireless communication including microelectronics technologies have led to the proliferation of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). WSNs have gained worldwide popularity in the realization of various applications such as monitoring the events from remote and hazardous locations particularly in those circumstances in which it is difficult as well as dangerous to reach such locations. Also, WSNs offer diversified applications ranging from real-time intelligent building control, environmental control systems to health-care systems, etc. WSNs are more popular as compared to wired sensor networks due to the elimination of communication cables and lower installation and maintenance cost. WSNs are best suited for the deploy and forget scenario. With the rapid growth in fabrication technology and hardware circuitries, the hardware circuits becoming cheaper. Further miniaturization of sensor nodes in WSNs has paved the path for embedded systems. The limited capacity of the battery along with the unpredictable battery life of sensor nodes are two major challenges for achieving the deploy and forget scenario in WSNs. The sensor nodes maintain their autonomous status in the network by utilizing electrical energy supplied primarily from constrained battery power. The size and weight of the overall system are dependent on the batteries, thus batteries are not only the weakest module but also the very expensive module in the system. Batteries require proper maintenance with an adequate mechanism for either recharging or replacement making it a serious concern in WSNs. Therefore, it is clear that limited capacity batteries and their sizes bottleneck sensor nodes lifetime in WSNs. So, there is an urgent requirement for an alternative source of energy for energizing the sensor nodes. One of the possible solutions is an emerging and promising energy harvesting/scavenging mechanism. In this mechanism, the energy is harvested/ scavenged by utilizing pervasive sources of energy namely solar,