Distributed Multi-hop Network Association in Large-Scale Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we consider the construction of a large scale wireless sensor network (WSN) by means of distributed network association with scalability. We design a network association mechanism that allows each router to have its own addressing space for unique addressing of its child nodes based on a pre-initialized addressing tree. We also design a device selection algorithm that can locate routers throughout the whole deployment area using a minimum number of routers (i.e., minimizing the energy consumption). Thus, nodes can securely join the network through a sufficient number of neighboring routers, with the use of a uniquely allocated address in a distributed manner. Finally, the performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated by computer simulation, showing remarkable performance improvement over conventional schemes when applied to the construction of a large scale WSN.