Recycled ID assignment for relocation of hopping sensors

Redundant mobile sensors might be moved in order to cover sensing holes or replace power-exhausted sensors. Within rugged terrains, the use of hopping sensors may be more suitable than wheeled mobile sensors. Since WSN communication is data-centric, globally unique ID allocation that is used for MANETs is usually not applicable for WSNs. A recent study classifies the locally unique ID allocation scheme for WSNs into two representative types: a proactive and a reactive scheme. In the reactive scheme, energy preservation is improved because ID conflict resolution is delayed until data communication is needed. Although a typical reactive ID assignment scheme is used, local uniqueness cannot be guaranteed if hopping sensors are relocated. In order to overcome the weakness, we propose the recycled ID assignment scheme for relocation of hopping sensors. Simulation results show that the proposed recycled ID assignment scheme outperforms the typical reactive scheme for relocation of hopping sensors.