Designing Logical Topology for Wireless Sensor Networks: A Multi-Chain Oriented Approach
International Journal of Ad hoc, Sensor & Ubiquitous Computing (IJASUC), 4 (1):
20 (February Charles Sturt University, Australia)DOI: 10.5121/ijasuc.2013.4101
Abstract
An optimal logical topology of a wireless sensor network (WSN) facilitates the deployed sensor nodes to
communicate with each other with little overheads, lowers energy consumption, lengthens lifetime of the
network, provides scalability, increases reliability, and reduces latency. Designing an optimal logical
topology for a WSN thus needs to consider numerous factors. Chain oriented topologies have been found
to offer a number of improvements in energy consumptions, lifetime, and load balancing than other
topologies of WSNs. However, they usually suffer from latency, scalability, reliability and interference
problems. In this paper, we present a chain oriented logical topology, which offers solutions to those
problems. The proposed topology is designed such that it retains the advantages of the chain oriented
topologies, and at the same time, overcomes the problems of the chain oriented topology such as latency,
scalability, and data reliability. The proposed topology provides a communication abstraction, which can
be easily used to devise a range of application protocols. Moreover, the logical topology offers node
management, resource management, and other services. The performance of the proposed topology is
compared with other topologies in respect to total energy consumption and lifetime of the network.