Localized Topology Control Algorithm with No Geometric Information for Ad Hoc Sensor Networks

We present a localized algorithm (LTCA) for topology control in wireless sensor networks which has certain desirable properties. First, the algorithm is very simple, strictly local (requires 1-hop information of neighbors) and fast, requiring each node to communicate with its neighbors exactly twice. Second, LTCA does not assume the underlying graph to be a unit disk graph, and in fact works on general graphs. Third, the most important feature of LTCA is that it is completely independent of any location information of nodes in the network graph; it relies only on the connectivity information and the identities (ids) of the neighboring nodes. Assuming sensor nodes are deployed in the plane, it is shown that the resulting subgraph obtained by our algorithm is connected, symmetric and contains few edge crossings. We provide simulation results and show that on random graphs the resulting topology is spanner and the average degree of the subgraph is low. Due to the simplicity of the algorithm, LTCA can easily be implemented in practical ad hoc sensor networks.