Partition Identification and Redeployment Algorithm Through Neighbourhood Information

Abstract

The maintenance of connectivity and coverage is a crucial factor in the performance of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), as it significantly impacts the quality of service (QoS) aspects. The primary objective of a wireless sensor network is to monitor a specific area and report any events to a central repository, known as a sink. However, this can only be accomplished if a valid path exists. Therefore, the failure of a critical sensor along the path to the sink can result in network partitioning. Consequently, prohibiting a group of active nodes to effectively transmit their data to the sink, which leads to network underutilization. To address this problem, we propose an optimal solution called Partition Identification and Redeployment Algorithm (PIRA). PIRA consists of three steps: Initialization, Partition Detection, and Recovery phase. During the Initialization phase, the sink node collects all the information about the network. In the Partition Detection phase, we address both partitions created during the network deployment phase using innovative cooperative beamforming, as well as partitions that occur during the operational phase through nodes exchanging periodic Beacon messages. The algorithm detects failures by observing if certain nodes fails to receive messages from neighboring nodes and subsequently sends failure reports, allowing the sink node to identify network partition. In the recovery phase, optimized relay node redeployment is performed based on the received signal strength. The proposed algorithm is evaluated by comparing it with existing notable solutions. The results demonstrate that PIRA surpasses other techniques in terms of partition detection, detection duration, and energy consumption. It achieves low latency and energy consumption while minimizing the communication overhead.