Topology Tomography in Wireless Sensor Networks Based on Data Aggregation

Wireless sensor networks need energy-efficient mechanisms to measure topology for various aspects of network management, such as resource scheduling, performance evaluation and optimization. In this paper, we take into account the unique data aggregation communication paradigm of sensor networks: the sink node can infer the topology by exploiting whether data from various sensor nodes are received, without incurring any additional burden on the network. Then we present a practical algorithm for topology measurement based on network tomography technology that exploits the monotonicity of end-to-end loss with increasing path length. Finally, we validate the algorithm through simulations and it exhibits good performance and scalability.