Position -based Energy-Efficient Data Forwarding Protocol for Visual Sensor Networks

Recently, Visual Sensor Networks (VSNs) consisting of camera nodes have emerged as a new class of wireless networks. Low-capability camera nodes have the ability to capture and transmit visual data cooperatively. VSNs realize many applications by relying on the achieved information from camera nodes and transmitting important data to a specific destination (Sink). Based on literature, many position-based routing protocols have been proposed for VSNs which consider application requirements and camera nodes characteristics. In most of these protocols, maintaining neighborhood information by sending periodic control messages increases energy consumption in camera nodes. There are a few protocols without using periodic control messages. However, they suffer from injection of redundant data to the network. In this paper, Energy-Efficient data Forwarding protocol (EEF) in VSNs is proposed. This protocol which is based on camera nodes’ positions, uses greedy forwarder selection method to forward data without exchanging periodic control messages and utilizes waiting time mechanism. Simulation results show that the EEF decreases injected redundant data to the network and has better balancing in energy consumption of camera nodes in comparison with the state-of-the-art protocols.