Cooperative structure for wireless sensor networks

Connectivity maintenance plays a critical role in wireless sensor networks, while traditional communication range only considers direct transmission. In this paper, cooperation transmission is utilized in sensor networks, with the performance of cooperative communication range being analytical evaluated, in comparison with direct transmission. Cooperation is capable of enlarging a node´s range to a great extent, so that it can reduce the node density of the networks with same connectivity. Connectivity intensity is presented as a performance metric, and simulation results demonstrate that the effectiveness of cooperation. In this sense, cooperative structure is proposed, which is the configuration between flat and hierarchy structure.