Maximal Weight Topology Discovery in Ad hoc Wireless Sensor Networks

Among many issues to be considered in designing an ad hoc wireless sensor network the key issue that stands out is to employ an efficient weighted topology discovery algorithm based upon certain node parameters. In the paper, we have described an algorithm for weighted topology discovery which uses colors based approach to partition the network in to clusters. Each cluster has a clusterhead. The nodes internal to the cluster can directly communicate with the selected clusterhead. Clusterheads can communicate with other clusterhead directly or through defined forwarding nodes. In sensor network nodes have different characteristics. The proposed algorithm is a weighted clustering approach which takes into account the network and the properties of the sensor nodes. The algorithm defines the topology in two phases. The first phase is Information exchange phase in which the nodes exchange their resources information. In the second phase the clusters in the network are discovered. The goal of the algorithm is to minimize the number for reconfigurations and minimize the number of clusterheads which results in near optimal topology for the network. At the end evaluation of the proposed Algorithm performance is done using simulations against already described techniques. Average number of clusterheads, network lifetime and reconfigurations and other factors evaluates the proposed Algorithm in term of its Performance and highlight its significance.