Title: The complexity of cluster-connectivity of wireless sensor networks

Authors: H.K. Dai; H.C. Su

Addresses: Computer Science Department, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078, USA ' Department of Computer Science, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, Arkansas 72401, USA

Abstract: Wireless sensor networks consist of sensor devices with limited computational capabilities and memory operating in bounded energy resources; hence, network optimisation and algorithmic development in minimising the total energy or power while maintaining the connectivity of the underlying network are crucial for their design and maintenance. We consider a generalised system model of wireless sensor networks whose node set is decomposed into multiple clusters, and show that the decision and the associated minimisation problems of the connectivity of clustered wireless sensor networks appear to be computationally intractable - completeness and hardness, respectively, for the non-deterministic polynomial-time complexity class. An approximation algorithm is devised to minimise the number of end nodes of inter-cluster edges within a factor of 2 of the optimum for the cluster-connectivity.

Keywords: wireless sensor network; connectivity; spanning tree; non-deterministic polynomial-time complexity class; approximation algorithm.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIDM.2019.101947

International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining, 2019 Vol.15 No.3, pp.327 - 348

Received: 01 Feb 2017
Accepted: 17 Jun 2017
Published online: 02 Sep 2019 *

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