Bootstrapping a very low power, beacon enabled, wireless sensor network

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) consisting of a large number of inexpensive sensor nodes are a viable solution for many problems in the field of building automation, especially if the expected lifetime of the network permits to synchronize the network maintenance with the schedule for routine maintenance of the building. A challenging and up to now only marginally addressed problem concerns the power-on phase and the automatic topology discovery and maintenance process of the sensor network. We suggest a simple heuristic algorithm, which permits the integration of all sensor nodes into a tree-like failure tolerant routing structure and also provides continuous adaptation of the structure to possible changes. We developed a simulation model to reproduce the problems of a realistic indoor placement of the nodes to test the proposed algorithm. Simulation results show that the suggested algorithm converges quickly to a structure with the desired properties even in the worst case.