A topology management framework for wireless sensor networks via power control

The communication topology plays a key rule in the overall network performance. Topology management via power control has been addressed by many researchers to attain better utilization of available resources by reducing the complexity of the network topology. Energy conservation in these protocols is mainly achieved by utilizing lower transmission power levels. Like other types of wireless ad hoc networks, this feature makes their applicability in sensor networks equally attractive. However, most of the previous solutions were not designed while considering various data traffic patterns in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). We propose a topology management framework that dynamically adjusts transmission power levels to cater for several data traffic patterns. The simulation results show that the resultant fully-connected tree-like topologies offer an efficient tradeoff between available resources and the network topology complexity.