Topology Management for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Topology management is a key component of network management of wireless sensor networks. The primary goal of topology management is to conserve energy while maintaining network connectivity. Topology management consists of knowing the physical connections and logical relationships among the sensors. Another important concept of topology management is to have only a subset of nodes actively participating in the network, thus creating less communication and conserving energy in nodes. This chapter provides a detailed survey of existing topology management algorithms proposed for wireless sensor networks in three categories: topology discovery (learning the layout of the nodes), sleep cycle management (allowing some nodes to sleep to conserve energy), and clustering (grouping nodes to conserve energy).