Question

Difference between homogeneous and heterogeneous sensor networks

Answer 1

A homogeneous sensor network consists of identical nodes, while a heterogeneous sensor network consists of two or more types of nodes (organized into hierarchical clusters). We first consider single hop clustered sensor networks (nodes use single hopping to reach the cluster heads). We use LEACH as the representative single hop homogeneous network, and a sensor network with two types of nodes as a representative single hop heterogeneous network.For multihop homogeneous networks (nodes use multihopping to reach the cluster head), we propose and analyze a multihop variant of LEACH that we call M-LEACH. We show that M-LEACH has better energy efficiency than LEACH in many cases. We then compare the cost of multi hop clustered sensor networks with M-LEACH as the representative homogeneous network, and a sensor network with two types of nodes (that use in-cluster multi-hopping) as the representative heterogeneous network.