An efficient self-healing process for ZigBee sensor networks

Self-healing is an important feature of robust and reliable wireless sensor networks. ZigBee is an industrial standard widely adopted for wireless sensor networks. We propose an efficient process for a ZigBee network to repair itself after node failure or communication breakdown. It allows a disconnected subnet to rejoin the network with minimum message exchanges and, therefore, saves time and energy. This efficiency is achieved by letting a disconnected node to reconnect to the network together with as many descendant nodes as possible. Theoretical and simulation evaluations confirm the efficiency of the proposed process.