A Survey on Distributed Topology Control Techniques for Extending the Lifetime of Battery Powered Wireless Sensor Networks

Large-scale, self-organizing wireless sensor and
mesh network deployments are being driven by recent technological
developments such as The Internet of Things (IoT), Smart
Grids and Smart Environment applications. Efficient use of the
limited energy resources of wireless sensor network (WSN) nodes
is critically important to support these advances, and application
of topology control methods will have a profound impact on
energy efficiency and hence battery lifetime.
In this survey, we focus on the energy efficiency issue and
present a comprehensive study of topology control techniques for
extending the lifetime of battery powered WSNs. First, we review
the significant topology control algorithms to provide insights
into how energy efficiency is achieved by design. Further, these
algorithms are classified according to the energy conservation
approach they adopt, and evaluated by the trade-offs they offer
to aid designers in selecting a technique that best suits their
applications. Since the concept of “network lifetime” is widely
used for assessing the algorithms’ performance, we highlight
various definitions of the term and discuss their merits and
drawbacks.
Recently, there has been growing interest in algorithms for
non-planar topologies such as deployments in underwater environments
or multi-level buildings. For this reason, we also include
a detailed discussion of topology control algorithms that work
efficiently in three dimensions.
Based on the outcomes of our review, we identify a number
of open research issues for achieving energy efficiency through
topology control.