Geometric Broadcast Protocol for Sensor and Actor Networks

Abstract

We present geometric broadcast for sensor and actor networks (GBSA), a novel broadcasting protocol for heterogeneous wireless sensor and actor networks. While broadcasting is a very energy-expensive protocol, it is also widely used as a building block for a variety of other network layer protocols. Therefore, reducing the energy consumption by optimizing broadcasting is a major improvement in heterogenous sensor networking. GBSA is a distributed algorithm where nodes make local decisions on whether to transmit based on a geometric approach. GBSA does not need any neighborhood information and imposes very low communication overhead. GBSA is scalable to the change in network size, node type, node density and topology. GBSA accommodates seamlessly such network changes, including the presence of actors in heterogeneous sensor networks. Indeed GBSA takes advantage of actor nodes, and uses their resources when possible, thus reducing the energy consumption by sensor nodes. Through simulation evaluations, we show that GBSA is very scalable and its performance is improved by the presence of actors. At best of our knowledge, GBSA is the first broadcast protocol designed specifically for heterogeneous sensor and actor networks.