An SDN-based adaptive payload structure and transmission management for reliable WSN data collection in extreme cold region environments

Polar observation networks face intermittent connectivity, degraded channel quality, and limited energy at remote edge nodes. Conventional strategies either lose data or waste energy on failed transmissions. This paper proposes an SDN-based adaptive payload control architecture that dynamically restructures payloads into Metadata and Raw tiers according to real-time channel state, employing asymmetric dual-channel splitting, priority-based filtering, and an abort-and-resume mechanism. We define Non-Productive Energy Ratio (NPER) to quantify energy wasted on unsuccessful transmissions. Simulations grounded in RSSI data from controlled polar-condition experiments show the proposed strategy reduces complete data loss from 19.4–54.6% to 0–0.1%, while cutting NPER by 97–99%.