Scalable Self-Assembly for Ad Hoc Wireless Sensor Networks

In distributed wireless sensing applications such as unattended ground sensor systems, remote planetary exploration, and condition based maintenance, where the deployment site is remote and/or the scale of the network is large, individual emplacement and configuration of the sensor nodes is difficult. Hence network self-assembly and continuous network self-organization during the lifetime of the network in a reliable, efficient, and scalable manner are crucial for successful deployment and operation of such networks. This paper provides an overview of the concept of network self-assembly for ad-hoc wireless sensor networks at the link level, with descriptions of results from implementation of a novel network formation mechanism for wireless un-attended ground sensor applications using a multi-cluster hierarchical topology and a novel dual-radio architecture.