Probabilistic Data Forwarding in Wireless Sensor Networks

Keywords and Synonyms

Data propagation ; Routing        

Problem Definition

An important problem in wireless sensor networks is that of local detection and propagation, i. e. the local sensing of a crucial event and the energy and time efficient propagation of data reporting its realization to a control center (for a graphical presentation, see Fig. 1). This center (called the “sink”) could be some human authorities responsible of taking action upon the realization of the crucial event. More formally:

Definition 1

Assume that a single sensor, E, senses the realization of a local event ${ \mathcal{E} }$. Then the propagation problem is the following: “How can sensor P, via cooperation with the rest of the sensors in the network, efficiently propagate information reporting the realization of the event to the sink S?”

Note that this problem is in fact closely related to the more general problem of data propagation in sensor networks.

Figure 1

A sensor network