One of the challenging issues in wireless sensor networks is to acquire, process, and transmit information using the least amount of battery power; In response to this problem, a novel routing scheme for wireless sensor networks, called Information Dissemination via Label Forwarding (IDLF) , is presented. IDLF consists of three information exchanging stages. In the first stage, a label is disseminated by a source. After a sink receives the label, it replies a request to the source. By exchanging a label and request, a data path between a source and sink is formed. Finally, an actual data is transmitted through the data path. Transmitting labels and requests, instead of actual data, reduces the redundant transmissions of data packets, and thus achieves energy savings; In addition to IDLF, four energy management schemes---directional forwarding, minimum transmission around the sink, battery threshold value, and differential coding---are proposed. We compare IDLF with flooding and another wireless routing protocol named SPIN. The simulation results show that the IDLF together with four energy management schemes can save a significant amount of energy compared to the other two routings
