Performance evaluation of different logical topologies and their respective protocols for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have several constraints of the sensor nodes such as limited energy source, low memory size and low processing speed, which are the principal obstacles to design efficient protocols for WSNs. Major challenges of WSNs are to prolong the network lifetime and throughput. This paper explores performance of WSNs in different logical topologies. Logical topologies play very significant role in the overall performances of the network, such as network lifetime, throughput, , energy consumption and end-to-end delay. A number of logical topologies was proposed for WSNs, including flat topology, cluster-distributed topology, cluster-centralized topology and chain topology, along with their corresponding routing protocols. Simulation experiments were done by using NS-2.34 program for the logical topologies. The topologies were cluster–distributed, chain-based, cluster–centralized and flat with its corresponding protocols of LEACH, PEGASIS, LEACH-C and MTE respectively. MATLAB is used to plot the graphs. Performance metrics measured are the network lifetime, energy consumption and total amount of aggregate data received at the base station.