Evaluating Mobility Impact on Wireless Sensor Network

An increasing number of applications based on Wireless Sensor Networks assume mobile environments(Mobile WSNs). Mobile WSNs propose several converging issues with Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) but the peculiarities of their technology and application domain advise a specific theoretical analysis of mobility impact on network connectivity. Network performance depends by several factors; there is a clear relationship between overall performance and the efficiency of network mechanisms (e.g. topology control and routing) that are directly affected by network connectivity. The paper first proposes an evaluation of randomly deployed clustered WSNs in function of network size/density, topology and communication range. Then, the mobility impact on network connectivity is analyzed and evaluated extending the analysis to overlay configuration. This evaluation has an implicit relationship with mobile behaviors. In order to provide extended analysis capabilities, an analytic model for mobile behaviors is also proposed. All reported results were obtained through simulations according to a general approach, independent from routing protocols or any other domain-specific mechanisms as well as by environmental conditions.