Multimode WSN: Improving Robustness, Fault Tolerance and Performance of Randomly Deployed Wireless Sensor Network

This paper proposes an advanced, robust and flexible solution that applies the (revised) concept of Always Best Connected (ABC) Network, typical of multimode modern mobile devices, to Wireless Sensor Network. Hostile environments and unpredictable conditions (e.g. interferences) can negatively affect communication range, potentially increasing the number of unconnected nodes in random deployments. Multimode Wireless Sensor Network (MM-WSN) is provided with an adaptive mechanism for environmental condition evaluation and with the ability of self-configuring itself for optimal networking independence of detected conditions. Proposed solution is based on advanced smart nodes provided with multiple resource in terms of computation, storage, communication and sensing that, with the support of proposed framework, allows complex mechanisms for fault detecting/tolerance and for the increasing of network robustness and performance. Several research issues are addressed by the paper.