A foliage scatter model to determine topology of wireless sensor network

Applications of low cost wireless sensor networks (WSN) in precision agriculture is gaining popularity because of the ability of sensors to provide site-specific data over a variable field. Wireless communication between nodes is impeded by the surrounding vegetation of the plants being monitored. To guarantee reliable communication between sensor nodes, the initial node density and topology of a WSN application has to consider the increased foliage of a mature plant. In this paper we propose a model for deployment of wireless nodes based on experimental results that takes into account the scattering effect of surrounding foliage on the wireless signal.