DEENR vs C3R: A Comparative Analysis of Connectivity Restoration Protocols

Due to their diverse range of applications, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been the center of attention for research since last few decades. Due to their inherent characteristics, mostly WSNs are deployed in hostile environments where human intervention is mostly infeasible. A sensor node failure is a common phenomenon in WSNs and node failure leads to partitioning of the networks resulting in loss of inter-node connectivity. Loss of connectivity can compromise the operation of the whole sensor network. Therefore, rapid recovery of partitioned network is crucial for persistence of the operation of the sensor network. In the literature, a plethora of different approaches regarding the restoration of inter-node connectivity are present. However, these approaches have not focused on the efficient use of energy, coverage-aware mechanisms, and connectivity restoration in an integrated manner. In this paper we compare two representative approaches for connectivity restoration named C3R (Coverage Conscious Connectivity Restoration) and DEENR (Distributed Energy Efficient Node Relocation Algorithm). Both of these approaches are thoroughly evaluated with respect to multiple performance metrics by using extensive simulations in NS-2. Simulation results conclude that DEENR prove to outperform C3R with respect to multiple performance metrics.