The sectoral sweeper scheme for wireless sensor networks: Adaptive antenna array based sensor node management and location estimation

Abstract

We introduce a novel sensor node management and location estimation method referred as sectoral sweeper (SS) scheme that uses an adaptive antenna array (AAA) at a central node in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). With the SS scheme, the central node can activate or deactivate the nodes in a desired region which is specified by beam direction and beam width of the transmit beam and also by minimum and maximum thresholds (R (min) and R (max)) for the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) of signals received by the nodes. In order to perform a specified task that is associated with a Task_id, two different beams are transmitted, which are task region beam and routing region beam to switch the nodes into active or routing modes. Since our scheme does not require any additional software or hardware for node management and location estimation in sensor nodes, the deficiencies of tiny sensors are effectively eliminated. The proposed scheme is shown to reduce the number of sensing nodes and the amount of data traffic in the network, thus leading to considerable savings in energy consumption and prolonged sensor lifetime.