Distributed and Load-Adaptive Self Configuration in Sensor Networks

Proactive self-configuration is crucial for MANETs such as sensor networks, as these are often deployed in hostile environments and are ad hoc in nature. The dynamic architecture of the network is monitored by exchanging so-called network state beacons (NSBs) between key network nodes. The beacon exchange rate and the network state define both the time and nature of a proactive action to combat network performance degradation at a time of crisis. It is thus essential to optimize these parameters for the dynamic load profile of the network. This paper presents a novel distributed adaptive optimization beacon exchange selection model which considers distributed network load for energy efficient monitoring and proactive reconfiguration of the network. The results show an improvement of 70% in throughput, while maintaining a guaranteed quality-of-service for a small control-traffic overhead