A Performance Comparison of Different Topologies for Wireless Sensor Networks

Presently, star, mesh, tree, and clustered hierarchical architecture have emerged as the choice topologies for wireless sensor networks (WSN). Each topology has its own pros and cons under the specific working environment constraints. Consequently, current research depicts customized domain-specific ad hoc network topologies for efficient utilization of the constrained sensor resources. In this paper, we compare the various WSN topologies using performance criteria such as reliability, energy-efficiency, network life, scalability, self-organizing capability, data latency, etc. We focus on the reliability comparison of different topologies through a quantitative study. And we present a qualitative discussion on other performance criteria. Our study will provide useful insights for the WSN designers in choosing the appropriate topology and associated design parameters. We illustrate our observations via case studies.