Partitioning Detection and Connectivity Restoration Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Actor Networks

Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks have received a growing attention from the research community because of their suitability for critical applications. Maintaining inter-actor connectivity becomes extremely crucial in such situations where actors have to quickly plan optimal coordinated response to detected events. Failure of critical actor partitions the inter-actor network into disjoint segments, and thus hinders the network operation. Autonomous detection and rapid recovery procedures are highly desirable in such a case. We present PCR, a hybrid novel distributed partitioning detection and connectivity restoration algorithm. It proactively identifies critical actors based on local topological information and designates appropriate backup nodes to handle their failure. A backup actor detects the failure and initiates a recovery process that may involve coordinated multi-actor relocation. Simulation results validate the performance of PCR that outperforms contemporary schemes found in literature.