Straight skeleton based reconnection in a wireless sensor network

Decreasing costs and increasing functionality of embedded computation and communication devices have made Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) attractive for applications that serve in inhospitable environments like battlefields, planetary exploration or environmental monitoring. WSNs employed in these environments are expected to work autonomously and extend the network lifespan for as long as possible while carrying out their designated tasks. The harsh environment exposes the individual nodes to high risk of failure, which can potentially partition the network into disjoint segments. Therefore, the network must be able to self-heal and restore lost connectivity using available resources. The ad-hoc nature of deployment, harsh operating environment and lack of resources makes distributed approaches the most suitable choice for recovery. In this paper we present SSBR, a straight skeleton based distributed approach for reconnecting a WSN partitioned into disjoint segments. The basic idea of SSBR is to decompose the network area into two dimensional set of paths that can be used for recovery. Mobile nodes are deployed by surviving disjoint segments along the paths until connectivity is reestablished. The performance of SSBR is validated through mathematical analysis and simulation.