Using Soft-Line Recursive Response to Improve Query Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks

— In large Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), each hop might incur varying delays due to medium access contention, transmission and computation delays. Fast and efficient query responses are essential to network performance and maintenance. To save energy in battery-powered sensors, it is desirable that data be aggregated or compressed along the way toward the Base-Station (BS). The common method to aggregate data from network edge to the BS uses a hard-line timer that requires sensors near the network edge to respond to a query earlier than sensors in the vicinity of BS [1], [2]. Such rigid scheduling ignores the WSNs’s topology and stability. Aggregation opportunities are wasted if query response time is set incorrectly. Estimating and allocating precise per-hop communication times for each node in a large WSN is difficult because timing depends on the network’s connectivity, medium access contention and topology. We develop a novel, generic and scalable method, which we call S...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: ICC
• Authors: Xiaoming Lu, Matt Spear, Karl N. Levitt, Norman S. Matloff, Shyhtsun Felix Wu
• Keywords: Aggregation Opportunities, Communications, ICC 2008, Medium Access Contention, Query Response