Random Walker Coverage Analysis for Information Dissemination in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

The increasing technological progress in electronics provides network nodes with new and enhanced capabilities that allow the revisit of the traditional information dissemination (and collection) problem. The probabilistic nature of information dissemination using random walkers is exploited here to deal with challenges imposed by unconventional modern environments. In such systems, node operation is not deterministic (e.g., does not depend only on network nodes’ battery), but it rather depends on the particulars of the ambient environment (e.g., in the case of energy harvesting: sunshine, wind). The mechanism of information dissemination using one random walker is studied and analyzed in this paper under a different and novel perspective. In particular, it takes into account the stochastic nature of random walks, enabling further understanding of network coverage. A novel and original analysis is presented, which reveals the evolution network coverage by a random walker with respect to time. The derived analytical results reveal certain additional interesting aspects regarding network coverage, thus shedding more light on the random walker mechanism. Further analytical results, regarding the walker’s spatial movement and its associated neighborhood, are also confirmed through experimentation. Finally, simulation results considering random geometric graph topologies, which are suitable for modeling mobile environments, support and confirm the analytical findings.