Periodic oscillations in epidemical models of tree-based wireless sensor networks

Tree topology is a widely used topology in wireless sensor networks; small world phenomena exist in tree-based wireless sensor networks. Small world phenomena not only can change the characteristics of wireless sensor networks such as the path length and the clustering coefficient, but also can change the rule of the epidemic spread in wireless sensor networks. We make both theoretical analysis and simulations on the dynamical characteristics of the epidemic spread of the virus in wireless sensor networks. Comparing the dynamical characteristics of the theoretical analysis with simulation results, we find that the epidemic spread exhibits the rule of periodic oscillations in tree-based wireless sensor networks, and this rule is helpful for us to study the corresponding defensive mechanisms in wireless sensor networks.