Title: Decentralised topology control algorithms for connectivity of distributed wireless sensor networks

Authors: Usha Nandini Raghavan, Soundar R.T. Kumara

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA. ' Department of Industrial Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

Abstract: In this paper, we study the problem of maintaining the connectivity of a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) using decentralised topology control protocols. Previous algorithms on topology control require the knowledge of the density of nodes (λ) in the sensing region. However, if λ varies continuously over time, updating this information, at all nodes is impractical. Therefore, in addition to efficient maintenance of connectivity, we also wish to reduce the control overhead of the topology control algorithm. In the absence of information regarding λ we study the connectivity properties of WSNs by means of giant components. We show that by maintaining the out-degree at each node as five will give rise to a giant connected component in the network. We also show that this is the smallest value that can maintain a giant connected component irrespective of how often or by how much λ changes.

Keywords: wireless sensor networks; distributed WSNs; decentralised topology control; percolation; giant connected components; wireless networks; connectivity.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2007.013200

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2007 Vol.2 No.3/4, pp.201 - 210

Published online: 11 Apr 2007 *

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