The Sectoral Sweeper Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks: Adaptive Antenna Array Based Sensor Node Management and Location Estimation

We introduce a novel sensor node management and location estimation method referred as sectoral sweeper (SS) scheme that uses an adaptive antenna array (AAA) at a central node in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). With the SS scheme, the central node can activate or deactivate the nodes in a desired region which is specified by beam direction and beam width of the transmit beam and also by minimum and maximum thresholds (R _min and R _max) for the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) of signals received by the nodes. In order to perform a specified task that is associated with a Task_id, two different beams are transmitted, which are task region beam and routing region beam to switch the nodes into active or routing modes. Since our scheme does not require any additional software or hardware for node management and location estimation in sensor nodes, the deficiencies of tiny sensors are effectively eliminated. The proposed scheme is shown to reduce the number of sensing nodes and the amount of data traffic in the network, thus leading to considerable savings in energy consumption and prolonged sensor lifetime. Ayhan Erdogan graduated from Turkish Naval Academy, Istanbul, in 1992. He received the MSdegree from the Computer Engineering, Naval Sciences and Engineering Institute, Turkish Naval Academy, Istanbul, in 2003. He attended to a one year training on Automatic Data Processing (ADP) Officer in Middle East Technical University, Turkey, in 1996. He worked as a Project Officer for Turkish Armed Forces Integrated Communication Systems Project developed by Turkish General Stuff, from 1996 until 2001. He is currently a PhD student at the Electronics Engineering and Computer Science Department, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey. His current research interests include Wireless Sensor Networks and Security for Ad hoc Networks. Vedat Coskun was born in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1962. He was graduated from Turkish Naval Academy, Istanbul, Turkey, in 1984. He received the M.Sc. degree from the Computer Science Department, Naval Post Graduate School, CA, USA, in 1990 and the Ph.D. degree from the Computer Engineering Department, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, in 1998. He managed the wargaming software development group in Turkish Naval Military Wargaming Center for 5 years. Hewas teaching assistant, faculty member and chairman with the Computer Engineering Department, Turkish Naval Academy. He was part-time visiting professor with Gebze Institute of Technology. He is currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Information Technology, ISIK University, Istanbul, Turkey. His current research interests include algorithm design, wireless sensor and actuator networks, and cryptography Adnan Kavak was born in Usak, Turkey, in 1970. He received the B.S. degree from the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, in 1992. He received the MS and PhD. degrees from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, The University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA, in 1996 and 2000, respectively. He was a satellite control engineer with Turksat Satellite Control Center, Ankara, Turkey, from December 1992 to May 1994. He worked as a Senior Research Engineer at Wireless Systems Laboratory, Samsung Telecommunications America in Richardson, TX, USA, from January 2000 to July 2001. He then joined Kocaeli University, Turkey, in August 2001 and worked as an Assistant Professor there until May 2005. Currently, he is the director ofWireless Communications and Information Systems (WINS) Research Center, and an Associate Professor with the Computer Engineering Department, Kocaeli University, Turkey. His current research interests include 3G and next generation wireless networks, software radios, smart antenna systems, resource allocation in 3G networks, and wireless sensor networks.