The reliance on wireless networks has grown tremendously within a number of varied application domains, prompting an evolution towards the use of heterogeneous multihop network architectures. We propose and analyze two communication frameworks for such networks. A first framework is designed for communications within multihop wireless access networks. The framework supports dynamic algorithms for locating access points using anycast routing with multiple metrics and balancing network load. The evaluation shows significant performance improvement over traditional solutions. A second framework is designed for communication within sensor networks and includes lightweight versions of our algorithms to fit the limitations of sensor networks. Analysis shows that this stripped down version can work almost equally well if tailored to the needs of a sensor network. We have also developed an extensive simulation environment using NS-2 to test realistic situations for the evaluations of our work. Our tools support analysis of realistic scenarios including the spreading of a forest fire within an area, and can easily be ported to other simulation software. Lastly, we us our algorithms and simulation environment to investigate sink movements optimization within sensor networks. Based on these results, we propose strategies, to be addressed in follow-on work, for building topology maps and finding optimal data collection points. Altogether, the communication framework and realistic simulation tools provide a complete communication and evaluation solution for access and sensor networks
