Relay node placement to restore connectivity in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks have been used extensively in a range of applications. Due to the harsh surroundings and their inherent vulnerability, these networks suffer from simultaneous nodes failure possibly causing the network to become partitioned into multiple disjoint segments. This paper proposes a Connecting via Virtual Force and Compromise Strategy (CVFCS) for recovering from this damage using relay nodes placement. Different from most existing restoration, it considers the segments as collections of sensor nodes, and not as some representative node. Firstly, the approach uses virtual forces to adjust existing nodes of damaged deployment for increasing coverage degree. Then it finds the proper triangular Steiner points or minimum spanning tree edges to achieve the optimal connecting all segments by using relay nodes. The simulation shows that the proposed CVFCS requires less relay nodes than other algorithms under the same damaged topology.