In the sensor network, all the sensor nodes deployed widely. When an event occurs in the particular region, all the sensor nodes would be sensing the same information and forwarding to sink. But the difference between this information is very small because all the sensor nodes are closely deployed. If information sensed by a sensor node is y(t) and neighbour node sensing information is x(t), and two vectors for a given time interval t1–t2 and the component of x(t)along y(t) is c(t), then information difference vector e(t), is represented by the following figure 

If the neighbour node information is orthogonal, then the difference vector e(t) is more than threshold value, and node’s sensor circuit is faulty

The performance of the EFDR is better in terms of network coverage, network life time and energy consumption. In a wireless sensor network (WSN), random occurrences of faulty nodes degrade the quality of service of the network. An efficient fault detection and routing (EFDR) scheme is used to manage a large size WSN. The faulty nodes are detected by neighbour node's temporal and spatial correlation of sensing information and heart beat message passed by the cluster head. In EFDR scheme, three linear cellular automata (CA) are used to manage transmitter circuit/ battery condition/microcontroller fault, receiver circuit fault and sensor circuit fault representation. On the other hand, L-system rules based data routing scheme is proposed to determine optimal routing path between cluster head and base station. The EFDR technique is capable of detecting and managing the faulty nodes in an efficient manner. Results show 86% improvement in the rate of energy loss compared to an existing algorithm.