Aiming at the energy hole problem in wireless sensor networks, a model considering energy of sensing, processing, transmitting, and receiving was established to analyze the energy hole problem. The concept of energy consuming rate was proposed, and the qualification for avoiding energy hole problem was provided. Using this model the effectiveness of some existing approaches towards mitigating the energy hole problem was investigated, such as node density, source bit rate, data fusion and routing style. The simulation results were given and compared with theoretical analysis to validate the correctness of this model, and the best way to mitigate the energy hole problem was suggested.
