An Energy Efficient Target Specific Code Dissemination Scheme with Forwarder Selection Algorithm in WSNs

In order to fix a bug or install a new application, disseminating a code to specific target sensors is an important management task in wireless sensor networks. In order to disseminate a code to specific target sensors in an energy efficient manner, it is required to select the minimum required number of forwarders with a small number of control messages. In this paper, we propose an energy efficient target specific code dissemination scheme with a forwarder selection algorithm. The proposed scheme consists of two steps, (i) a forwarder selection algorithm with a control message suppression, (ii) unnecessary forwarders reduction with a sleep mechanism. In order to select the minimum required forwarders with a small number of control messages, we propose an algorithm to select a forwarder where more target sensors are reachable, through a single control message by leveraging overhearing of control messages. In addition, in order to reduce the number of forwarders, we propose a sleep mechanism to put unnecessary forwarders to sleep where any target sensor is not reachable. A performance analysis has shown that the number of control messages of the proposed scheme is always theoretically smaller than that of a previously published forwarder selection scheme under the same condition. In addition, we have shown that the proposed scheme reduces the energy consumption compared with the previous scheme.