Improved Connectivity using Hybrid Uni/Omni-Directional Antennas in Sensor Networks

Connectivity in sensor networks is an important metric that describes the capability of networks to be able to report sensed information. The ability of member nodes to communicate with each other and collectively report data largely depends on connectivity. Density of node deployment, the transmission radius of the antenna and the communication paradigm employed has a significant effect on connectivity. A network deployment is said to be connected when every node within the network is capable of communicating, either via multi-hops or direct links to every other node in the network. This is a very strict connectivity requirement called 100% connectivity. This work deals with analyzing connectivity in various randomly deployed sensor network deployments and comparing metrics between omni and hybrid uni/omni-directional sensor networks. Specific results will be presented with varying node deployment densities and transmission radii and the levels of connectivity they guarantee. These results have significant impact on secure routing protocol design for wireless sensor networks and planning network deployments. I also present results on k-connectivity, which is a metric that represents network availability, along with the dependence on transmission radii, node densities and uni-directional antenna beam width