Hop Distance Analysis in Partially Connected Wireless Sensor Networks

Network connectivity, as a fundamental issue in a wireless sensor network(WSN), has been receiving considerable attention during the past decade. Most works focused on how to maintain full connectivity while conserving network resources. However, full connectivity is actually a sufficient but not necessary condition for many WSNs to communicate and function successfully. In addition, full connectivity requires high-demand in network cost as more sensors will be needed. Further, it is subject to high energy consumption and communication interference as higher communication power might be needed to connect the most isolated sensors. In view of this, this work investigates the hop distance in a randomly deployed WSN with partial network connectivity through modeling, analysis, and simulation perspectives. The results help in selecting critical network parameters for practical WSN designs of diverse WSN applications.