Analysis of Exploiting Geographic Routing for Data Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks

We analyze data aggregation that can be accomplished by the nature of geographic routing in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). WSNs naturally generate duplicate messages. These redundant messages consume the resources of WSNs, including battery supply. Therefore, several data aggregation and fusing techniques are proposed to solve this problem. Most of these techniques have overhead messages for cluster or leader selection where data can be forwarded and then aggregated. In this work, we exploit the directional forwarding exhibited in geographic routing where a sensor node could be passed by several redundant data messages. Thus, a node can automatically perform aggregation without leader selection and the overhead associated with it. In this case, for a single target event, a couple of sensor nodes could execute data aggregation. We show through simulation analysis that a degree of data aggregation and a reduction in energy consumption are accomplished compared with no aggregation at all.