A Distributed Topology Discovery Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

ii Large-scale data gathering wireless sensor networks must logically self-organize in a topology suitable for many-to-one traffic flow. An efficient method is necessary to extract topology information that can be used in management and control of networks. It is important for such a topology discovery algorithm to adhere to the resource constraints of bandwidth and energy imposed on sensor networks. We first develop a simulation environment based on previous research of wireless sensor networks for the purpose of topology generation, retrieval and maintenance. We propose an algorithm that allows the network to maintain an awareness of state, both globally and locally. This makes for a distributed and scalable design. We run a number of experiments to determine the efficiency of our scheme in terms of communication overhead and overall network connectivity. Our study also observes how the localized self-configuration process implemented impacts global network state when faults are introduced. We demonstrate that our algorithm has low communication overhead and is distributed using only local information. We conclude by suggesting some future research objectives and potential advancements in our field of work