Exploiting Resource-Rich Actors for Bridging Network Partitions in Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks

Real-time and energy efficient Actor-Actor Coordination (AAC) is an important problem in Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks (WSANs). Actor nodes need to communicate with each other to perform joint actions on the environment. Unlike sensor nodes, actor nodes are resource-rich and their energy can be renewed. In WSANs, only a few number of actors will be deployed due to their cost and there is no guarantee that they form a connected network as the actor nodes frequently move. We address the problem of efficiently bridging the partitions in an actor network using resource-constrained sensor nodes. We propose a hybrid communication architecture in which actor nodes use dual-channel and directional antenna. We show by theoretical analysis and simulation results that exploiting resource-richness of actors and the use of directional antenna help enabling real-time actor-actor communication with minimum overhead in the energy-constrained sensor nodes. The results show that the use of narrow beam-width directional antenna at actor nodes reduces latency in AAC with minimum wastage of energy in sensor nodes for bridging the actor partitions.