2006/01/01 by Sándor P. Fekete, Alexander Kröller, Fekete, Sándor +5
Computer Science · Engineering · #Distributed algorithms #Energy Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks #Modular Robots and Swarm Intelligence #Slime Mold and Myxomycetes Research #boundary recognition #sensor networks #topology extraction
paper · doi:10.4230/dagsemproc.05361.6
openalex publication_date 2006/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present a new framework for the crucial challenge of self-organization of a large sensor network. The basic scenario can be described as follows: Given a large swarm of immobile sensor nodes that have been scattered in a polygonal region, such as a street network. Nodes have no knowledge of size or shape of the environment or the position of other nodes. Moreover, they have no way of measuring coordinates, geometric distances to other nodes, or their direction. Their only way of interacting with other nodes is to send or to receive messages from any node that is within communication range. The objective is to develop algorithms and protocols that allow self-organization of the swarm into large-scale structures that reflect the structure of the street network, setting the stage for global routing, tracking and guiding algorithms. Our algorithms work in two stages: boundary recognition and topology extraction. All steps are strictly deterministic, yield fast distributed algorithms, and make no assumption on the distribution of nodes in the environment, other than sufficient density.