This paper describes the concept of sensor networks which has been made viable by the convergence of microelectro-mechanical systems technology, wireless communications and digital electronics. First, the sensing tasks and the potential sensor networks applications are explored, and a review of factors influencing the design of sensor networks is provided. Then, the communication architecture for sensor networks is outlined, and the algorithms and protocols developed for each layer in the literature are explored. Open research issues for the realization of sensor networks are

Recent advancement in wireless communica- tions and electronics has enabled the develop- ment of low-cost sensor networks. The sensor networks can be used for various application areas (e.g., health, military, home). For different application areas, there are different technical issues that researchers are currently resolving. The current state of the art of sensor networks is captured in this article, where solutions are discussed under their related protocol stack layer sections. This article also points out the open research issues and intends to spark new interests and developments in this field.

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This paper presents control and coordination algorithms for groups of vehicles. The focus is on autonomous vehicle networks performing distributed sensing tasks where each vehicle plays the role of a mobile tunable sensor. The paper proposes gradient descent algorithms for a class of utility functions which encode optimal coverage and sensing policies. The resulting closed-loop behavior is adaptive, distributed, asynchronous, and verifiably correct.

In this paper, we study a novel forwarding technique based on geographical location of the nodes involved and random selection of the relaying node via contention among receivers. We provide a detailed description of a MAC scheme based on these concepts and on collision avoidance and report on its energy and latency performance. A simplified analysis is given first, some relevant trade offs are highlighted, and parameter optimization is pursued. Further, a semi-Markov model is developed which provides a more accurate performance evaluation. Simulation results supporting the validity of our analytical approach are also provided.

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) represent complex distributed systems that comprise wireless mobile nodes that can freely and dynamically self-organize into arbitrary and temporary, "ad-hoc" network topologies, allowing people and devices to seamlessly internetwork in areas with no pre-existing communication infrastructure, e.g., disaster recovery environments. Ad hoc networking concept is not a new one, having been around in various forms for over 20 years. Traditionally, tactical networks have been the only communication networking application that followed the ad hoc paradigm. Recently, the introduction of new technologies such as the Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11 and Hyperlan are helping enable eventual commercial MANET deployments outside the military domain. These recent evolutions have been generating a renewed and growing interest in the research and development of MANET. This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of this dynamic field. It first explains the important role that mobile ad hoc networks play in the evolution of future wireless technologies. Then, it reviews the latest research activities in these areas, including a summary of MANET's characteristics, capabilities, applications, and design constraints. The paper concludes by presenting a set of challenges and problems requiring further research in the future.

Topology Control (TC) is one of the most important techniques used in wireless ad hoc and sensor networks to reduce energy consumption (which is essential to extend the network operational time) and radio interference (with a positive effect on the network traffic carrying capacity). The goal of this technique is to control the topology of the graph representing the communication links between network nodes with the purpose of maintaining some global graph property (e.g., connectivity), while reducing energy consumption and/or interference that are strictly related to the nodes ’ transmitting range. In this article, we state several problems related to topology control in wireless ad hoc and sensor networks, and we survey state-of-the-art solutions which have been proposed to tackle them. We also outline several directions for further research which we hope will motivate researchers to undertake additional studies in this field.

bahl~microsoft, corn ymwang~microsoft, corn rogerwa~microsoft, corn The topology of a wireless multi-hop network can be con-trolled by varying the transmission power at each node. In this paper, we give a detailed analysis of a cone-based dis-tributed topology control algorithm. This algorithm, intro-duced in [16], does not assume that nodes have GPS in-formation available; rather it depends only on directional information. Roughly speaking, the basic idea of the algo-rithm is that a node u transmits with the minimum power P~,,a required to ensure that in every cone of degree a around u, there is some node that u can reach with power Pma- We show that taking a = 57r/6 is a necessary and sufficient con-dition to guarantee that network connectivity is preserved. More precisely, if there is a path from a to t when every node communicates at maximum power then, if a < _ 5~r/6, there is still a path in the smallest symmetric graph Ga con-taining all edges (u, v) such that u can communicate with v using power p~,a. On the other hand, if ~> 51r/6, connec-tivity is not necessarily preserved. We also propose a set of optimizations that further reduce power consumption and prove that they retain network connectivity. Dynamic re-configuration in the presence of failures and mobility is also discussed. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm and the optimizations. 1.

In the minimum energy broadcasting problem, each node can adjust its transmission power in order to minimize total energy consumption but still enable a message originated from a source node to reach all the other nodes in an ad-hoc wireless network. In all existing solutions each node requires global network information (including distances between any two neighboring nodes in the network) in order to decide its own transmission radius. In this paper, we describe a new localized protocol where each node requires only the knowledge of its distance to all neighboring nodes and distances between its neighboring nodes (or, alternatively, geographic position of itself and its neighboring nodes). In addition to using only local information, our protocol is shown experimentally to be comparable to the best known globalized BIP solution. Our solutions are based on the use of relative neighborhood graph which preserves connectivity and is defined in localized manner.

Topology control problems are concerned with the assignment of power values to the nodes of an ad~hoc network so that the power assignment leads to a graph topology satisfying some specified properties. This paper considers such problems under several optimization objectives, including minimizing the maximum power and minimizing the total power. A general approach leading to a polynomial algorithm is presented for minimizing maximum power for a class of graph properties called monotone properties. The difficulty of generalizing the approach to properties that are not monotone is discussed. Problems involving the minimization of total power are known to be NP-complete even for simple graph properties. A general approach that leads to an approximation algorithm for minimizing the total power for some monotone properties is presented. Using this approach, a new approximation algorithm for the problem of minimizing the total power for obtaining a 2-node-connected graph is obtained. It is shown that this algorithm provides a constant performance guarantee. Experimental results from an implementation of the approximation algorithm are also presented.