LDPC-like belief propagation algorithm for consensus building in wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we apply belief propagation algorithm for consensus building in distributed wireless sensor networks (WSN). The objective is to achieve convergence to a global consensus value at all sensor nodes in the network. In order to implement the proposed belief propagation algorithm in a WSN, we introduce virtual fusion center nodes, which serve as sensors as well as local fusion centers in the sensor network. This paper also investigates the structure of WSNs that achieves convergence asymptotically, and guarantees achieving global consensus at all sensor nodes. Our results suggest that introducing certain range of irregularity in the network structure results in an improvement in the rate of convergence.