Analysis on topology control boundary conditions in delay tolerant wireless sensor networks

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), nodes are often scheduled to alternate between working mode and sleeping mode from energy efficiency point of view. When delay is tolerable, it is not necessary to preserve network connectivity during activity (working or sleeping) scheduling, enabling more sensors to be switched to sleeping mode and thus more energy savings. In this paper, the nodal behavior in such delay-tolerant WSNs (DT-WSNs) is modeled and analyzed. The maximum hop count with a routing path is derived in order not to violate a given sensor-to-sink delay constraint, along with extensive simulation results.