A network of sensors can be used to obtain state-based data from the area in which they are deployed. To reduce costs, the data, sent via intermediate sensors to a sink, is often aggregated (or compressed). This compression is done by a subset of the sensors called aggregators. Since sensors are usually equipped with small and unreplenishable energy reserves, a critical issue is to strategically deploy an appropriate number of aggregators so as to minimize the amount of energy consumed by transporting and aggregating the data.

In this paper, we first study single-level aggregation and propose an Energy-Efficient Protocol for Aggregator Selection (EPAS). Then, we generalize it to an aggregation hierarchy and extend EPAS to a Hierarchical Energy-Efficient Protocol for Aggregator Selection (hEPAS). We derive the optimal number of aggregators with generalized compression and power-consumption models, and present fully distributed algorithms for aggregator deployment. Simulation results show that our algorithms significantly reduce the energy consumption for data collection in wireless sensor networks. Moreover, the algorithms do not rely on particular routing protocols, and are thus applicable to a broad spectrum of application environments.