Continuous Neighbor Discovery in Asynchronous Sensor Networks

In most sensor networks, the nodes are static. Nevertheless, node connectivity is subject to changes because of disruptions in wireless communication, transmission power changes, or loss of synchronization between neighboring nodes. Hence, even after a sensor is aware of its immediate neighbors, it must continuously maintain its view, a process we call continuous neighbor discovery. In this work, we distinguish between neighbor discovery during sensor network initialization and continuous neighbor discovery. We focus on the latter and view it as a joint task of all the nodes in every connected segment. Each sensor employs a simple protocol in a coordinate effort to reduce power consumption without increasing the time required to detect hidden sensors.