A Comparative Study of Data Aggregation Approaches for Wireless Sensor Networks

In Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), data aggregation has been used to reduce bandwidth and energy costs during a data collection process. However, data aggregation, while bringing us the benefit of improving bandwidth usage and energy efficiency, also introduces opportunities for security attacks, thus reducing data delivery reliability. There is a trade-off between bandwidth and energy efficiency and achieving data delivery reliability. In this paper, we present a comparative study on the reliability and efficiency characteristics of different data aggregation approaches using both simulation studies and test bed evaluations. We also analyse the factors that contribute to network congestion and affect data delivery reliability. Finally, we investigate an optimal trade-off between reliability and efficiency properties of the different approaches by using an intermediate approach, called Multi-Aggregator based Multi-Cast (MAMC) data aggregation approach. Our evaluation results for MAMC show that it is possible to achieve reliability and efficiency at the same time.