A relay node deployment method for disconnected wireless sensor networks: Applied in indoor environments

In this paper, a 2-D geometric and adaptive relay node deployment method with polynomial-time complexity is proposed to reduce relay nodes for bridging all disconnected node pairs of a wireless sensor network (WSN). In this method, proper locations for placing relay nodes are discovered on a plane, which gives a much larger degree of freedom to compare with the traditional 1-D search algorithm. In this way, the deployed relay node can bridge as many disconnected node pairs as possible around it. Besides, the method can also adapt to radio environments because that a sophisticated propagation model including large-scale path loss, shadowing, and multipath fading effects is used to estimate link connectivity. Simulation result validates its robustness and efficiency compared with the existing relay node deployment methods. The proposed method significantly reduces the total number of relay nodes compared with the related works in all of the investigated indoor environments. & 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.