Role assignment in wireless sensor networks: energy-efficient strategies and algorithms
Wendi Heinzelman, Mark Perillo · 2008
Wireless sensor networks are expected to consist of large numbers of nodes with redundant capabilities. This redundancy may exist in the abilities of the sensor nodes to sense the environment, route data from other sensors, and aggregate and code redundant data, among other tasks. In order to allow the network to operate at a high level of fidelity, or QoS, for an extended period of time, the assignment of roles and protocol-level settings to nodes should be carefully considered and chosen so that a node's energy is used most efficiently to meet the end goal of the sensor network application. Decisions concerning role assignment should be made based on such node properties as location in the environment (both absolute and relative to other nodes), sensing capabilities, energy supply, and processing capabilities. In this dissertation, I present a general middleware framework under which these optimizations can be made and I present several ways that role assignment can be optimized to extend network lifetime, including application-aware routing cost assignment, spatial resolution management, and transmission power control.