Coping with irregular spatio-temporal sampling in sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks have attracted attention from a diverse set of researchers, due to the unique combination of distributed, resource and data processing constraints. However, until now, the lack of real sensor network deployments have resulted in ad-hoc assumptions on a wide range of issues including topology characteristics and data distribution. As deployments of sensor networks become more widespread [1, 2], many of these assumptions need to be revisited. This paper deals with the fundamental issue of spatio-temporal irregularity in sensor networks We make the case for the existence of such irregular spatio-temporal sampling, and show that it impacts many performance issues in sensor networks. For instance, data aggregation schemes provide inaccurate results, compression efficiency is dramatically reduced, data storage skews storage load among nodes and incurs significantly greater routing overhead. To mitigate the impact of irregularity, we outline a spectrum of solutions. ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2004
• Where: CCR
• Authors: Deepak Ganesan, Sylvia Ratnasamy, Hanbiao Wang, Deborah Estrin
• Keywords: CCR 2004, Sensor Network Deployments, Sensor Networks, Wireless Sensor Networks