Neighbor Cardinality Estimation with Low-Power Transceivers: Implementation and Experimental Results

Protocols for neighbor cardinality estimation can be used by a node in an ad hoc or sensor network to obtain a fast approximation of the number of nodes in its radio range. While the performance of such estimators was studied via simulations and mathematical analysis, we show here for the first time a proof-of-concept and performance test with an implementation on low-power wireless sensor devices. We illustrate the challenges of implementing the recently proposed Multi-feedback estimator (MFE) on Z1 devices. Experimental results show that - with certain computational improvements - MFE can perform faster than simple neighbor counting for scenarios with many nodes or relaxed accuracy requirements.