Volunteer-instigated connectivity restoration algorithm for Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks

Due to their applications, Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks (WSANs) have recently been getting significant attention from the research community. In these networks, maintaining inter-actor connectivity is of a paramount concern in order to plan an optimal coordinated response to a detected event. Failure of an actor may partition the inter-actor network into disjoint segments, and may thus hinder inter-actor coordination. This paper presents VCR, a novel distributed algorithm that opts to repair severed connectivity while imposing minimal overhead on the nodes. In VCR the neighbors of the failed actor volunteer to restore connectivity by exploiting their partially utilized transmission range and by repositioning closer to the failed actor. Furthermore, a diffusion force is applied among the relocating actors based on transmission range in order to reduce potential of interference, and improve connectivity. VCR is validated through simulation and is shown to outperform contemporary schemes found in the literature.