Communication-Aware Deployment for Wireless Sensor Networks

Deployment of senor nodes brings the challenging question on how to place the sensor nodes in order to achieve a particular coverage degree with optimum number of nodes. An important factor, which deployment process also should take into account is the radio signal propagation to guarantee reliable communication links among the network. In the present work, we firstly define a pre-deployment simulation framework and then propose RF signal propagation-based connectivity algorithm (RFCA) for outdoor applications. The RFCA utilizes RF signal propagation model for prediction of received signal strength (RSS). Several parameters of the system are considered for the RSS prediction: the RF frequency, the transmission power, the transmitter-receiver distance, their height from the ground and the antenna's characteristics (gain, polarization, etc.). We demonstrate that RFCA is able to find the most appropriate deployment parameters from the communication point of view (height, distance, and transmission power) for positioning of the sensor nodes.