Self-organizing mesh topology formation in Internet of things with heterogeneous devices

Abstract

This paper focuses on the design of self-organizing algorithms for mesh topology formation between low-power short-range heterogeneous devices. To this end, we consider randomly deployed devices that are heterogeneous in terms of characteristics such as energy source (e.g. mains, rechargeable battery, and coin-cell), computational resources, and communication capabilities. Resilient topology formation is considered in a Bluetooth based setting, where devices communicate locally to form pico-nets comprising of devices in master and slave roles. These pico-nets are connected via primary and secondary bridges that forward the traffic between the pico-nets. A role suitability metric based on the device characteristics (e.g. energy source and number of neighbors) is used to assign appropriate roles to devices. By energy aware RSM based topology formation, more than 100% increase in network lifetime over the baseline approach is achieved. And by adding secondary bridges between piconets ≈ 35% further increase in network lifetime is shown.