Coalition-Oriented Sensing in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks are generally composed of a large number of nodes that monitor their surrounding area. The monitoring capacity of sensors gets altered by the changing conditions of the environment and the sensors' internal state. Sensor coalitions, in which only the leader transmits information to a sink node, are a means to save resources when the conditions of the environment are similar around the sensors in the coalition. In this paper we analyse and formalise such sensor coalitions and propose an algorithm for coalition formation that allows the sensors to self-organise with the purpose of performing a good monitoring of the environment while maximising the life span of the sensor network as a whole. The algorithm uses the quality of the information fused at the coalition leader and the remaining energy of the sensors as the basic parameters to alter coalition membership and leadership.

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