Mobile relays based federation of multiple wireless sensor network segments with reduced-latency

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are used to continuously monitor certain area of interest and send data back to the base station for processing. In many applications, WSNs serve in inhospitable environments where multiple node failure may take place causing the network to be divided into disjoint segments. Also, multiple standalone WSNs in some applications may need to be federated to collectively handle an important event that requires data sharing among these networks. A viable approach for establishing connectivity among these network segments is by employing mobile data collectors (MDCs). Few MDCs can be used to create intermittent links among the segments by touring and carrying data. Obviously, the travel path of the MDCs will affect the date delivery latency. In this paper, we present an algorithm to form an intermittent star topology so that the average and maximum delay for delivering the inter-segment traffic is reduced. The performance of the algorithm is validated through simulation.