Deterministic leader election in anonymous sensor networks without common coordinated system

Abstract

We address the Leader Election (LE) problem in networks of anonymous sensors sharing no kind of common coordinate system. The contribution of this paper is twofold: First, assuming n anonymous sensors agreeing on a common handedness (chirality) of their own coordinate system, we provide a complete characterization on the sensors positions to deterministically elect a leader. Our result holds for any n > 1, even if the n sensors have unlimited visibility and regardless of their capabilities, unbounded memory, mobility, and communication settings. Second, we show that this statement also holds assuming sensors without chirality provided that n is odd. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.