A Specific Power Management Protocol for Minimizing and Managing the Power Drain of the WSN

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) provide wide-area monitoring and control of remote conditions. WSNs are composed of numerous miniature devices that are powered by their own batteries with limited energy, thus having to manage the power drain carefully. The main challenge of power management in WSNs is to maximize the network lifespan by scheduling the monitoring activities and optimizing the data transfer rate. Therefore, various power control methods were proposed to reduce energy consumption and extend the network lifetime. This article provides an overview of the power management techniques used to reduce energy consumption in WSNs. Specifically, this article explains various scheduling, routing and sleeping techniques that are used to manage the power drain in WSNs.