Packetostatics: deployment of massively dense sensor networks as an electrostatics problem

— We investigate the spatial distribution of wireless nodes that can transport a given volume of traffic in a sensor network, while requiring the minimum number of wireless nodes. The traffic is created at a spatially distributed set of sources, and must arrive at a spatially distributed set of sinks. Under a general assumption on the physical and medium access control (MAC) layers, the optimal distribution of nodes induces a traffic flow identical to the electrostatic field that would exist if the sources and sinks of traffic were substituted with an appropriate distribution of electric charge. This analogy between Electrostatics and wireless sensor networks can be extended in a number of different ways. For example, Thomson’s theorem on the distribution of electric charge on conductors gives the optimal distribution of traffic sources and sinks (that minimizes the number of nodes needed) when we have a limited degree of freedom on their initial placement. Electrostatics pr...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: INFOCOM
• Authors: Stavros Toumpis, Leandros Tassiulas
• Keywords: Communications, INFOCOM 2005, Sensor Networks, Wireless Nodes, Wireless Sensor Networks