RAT: Routing by Adaptive Targeting in Wireless Sensor/Actor Networks

Wireless sensor networks have attracted significant interest for various scientific, military, and e-health applications. Recently a new class of sensor networks "sensor/actuator" has been introducing new research challenges due to the unique coordination requirements. In particular, actuators that have the capability to move can respond to emergencies with adaptive targeting in comparison to static sink-based target management. In this regard, little work is done in terms of co-existing push and pull data flows in the network. Also positioning of the actuators in response to observations is still an open question. In this paper we propose an adaptive targeting (RAT) protocol that allows dynamic sensor-to-actor communication and actors coordination in response to emergencies. RAT exploits the mobility of actor nodes to form dynamic responsibility clusters, thus ensures an event specific response time to emergencies. Simulation results suggest significant performance improvements in terms of response time and energy conservation.