Patent ID: 8514760

Claim:
A method, comprising: (a) detecting a temporal event by a source sensor node of a wireless sensor network comprising a multiplicity of sensor nodes; (b) in response to said source sensor detecting said temporal event, said source sensor identifying multiple paths from said source sensor node to a sink of said wireless sensor network, said multiple paths consisting of sensor node to sensor node hops; after (b), (c) using a processor of said source sensor node, said source node optimizing a distribution of data packets to each path of said multiple paths by simultaneously reducing (i) power consumed by sensor nodes in each path of said multiple paths and (ii) a time to transmit said data packets from said source sensor node to said sink; and where said optimizing a distribution of data packets includes: determining power consumption for each sensor node in each path of said multiple paths; determining power consumed for transmission and reception of data packets over each path of said multiple paths; determining a time delay for each hop of each path of said multiple paths; determining a maximum allowable amount of time for transmission of data packets from said source sensor node to said sink; determining lifespans for each path of said multiple paths based on an amount of power of a sensor node of each path having a least amount of power remaining; and determining a most stable path based on said lifespans of each path of said multiple paths.