Worst-Case Routing Performance Evaluation of Sensor Networks

Successful sensor network applications depends heavily on the ability of these networks to reliably and reasonably perform under the worst-case scenarios, extreme and unusual events for which many such networks are designed to detect. One of the key performance measures is the network's ability to route measurement data from the sensor nodes to the destination node(s). This paper introduces a general framework with which worst-case routing performance of different sensor networks can be evaluated and compared. Our method can either be used as a design optimization tool, or a decision making tool to select and price contending sensor network designs and applications.