Hole handling techniques in wireless sensor networks: A survey
K J Reejamol, P Dhanya Raj · 2016
A significant breakthrough in the techniques for handling emergencies, mission critical applications and difficult to reach remote locations could be achieved with the development and deployment of wireless Sensor Networks that emerged as a result of recent advances in MEMS(Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) technology. A wireless sensor network consists of a large number of low-cost, low-power sensor nodes that are deployed in a specific application domain to sense different environmental parameters, suitable for the intended application. Geographic routing mechanism is very much suitable for the highly energy constrained wireless sensor networks due to its less memory and computational overhead. The presence of holes can defeat the advantages of geographic routing mechanism and may even harm the objective of network deployment. This paper conducts a survey on the various types of holes, cause for their occurrence and various techniques to deal with them. The various mechanisms that are used to recover from holes tend to increase energy consumption of sensor nodes and thus affect network lifetime. Thus the survey concentrates on energy efficient mechanisms to handle holes with an aim to improve network connectivity and network lifespan that will extend the applicability of wireless sensor networks.