Abstract: Wireless sensor network is energy constraint network. The lifetime of a network is defined by the life of first specified percentage of dying nodes. Load balancing is a method to equalize energy consumption of all nodes and this way all nodes will degrade together. By load balancing, the lifetime of the network does not depend only on the life of weak node but depends on the life all nodes in the network which helps to increase the life of the network. In this paper, we examine the proposed load balancing algorithms for wireless sensor networks. Load balancing can be used to extend the lifetime of a sensor network by reducing energy consumption. Load balancing using clustering can also increase network scalability. Wireless sensor network with the different energy levels nodes can prolong the lifetime of the network and also its reliability. We discuss the improvement to be made for future proposed load balancing schemes. This paper provided the reader with the basis for research in load balancing schemes for wireless sensor networks.

Keywords: Wireless sensor network, aggregation, data precision, residual energy, network lifetime