2014 International Conference on Electronic Systems, Signal Processing and Computing Technologies

Self-organization Architecture and Model for Wireless Sensor Networks

Sumedha Sirsikar1, Abhishek Chunawale1 and Manoj Chandak2
1 Dept. of Information Technology, Maharashtra Institute of Technology
Pune, India
1 e-mail: sumedha.sirsikar@mitpune.edu.in, abhish.chunawale82@gmail.com
2 Dept. of Comp. Sci. & Engineering, Shri Ramdeobaba College of Engineering & Management
Nagpur, India
2 e-mail: chandakmb@gmail.com

AbstractIn wireless sensor networks (WSN) there is a

need to have self-formation capabilities into an existing
variety of composite computing systems. In view of the fact
that functionality is distributed over a number of
components in a remote area, it would be an undefeatable
task to accumulate and instruct each of them individually.
All network entities should behave in a self-organized
manner that means the global behavior emerges through
their operation on local information and direct and/or
indirect mutual interaction. Based on the all characteristics,
we propose architecture of self-organizing wireless sensor
networks (SOWSN). The motivation to develop this model is
multifold. There is need to study various parameters of
system that are required by the WSN to be self-organized.
Hence we have come up with a model that forms a base for
self-organization of WSN. This model provides ability to
recognize and study significant parameters of a system along
with its essential metrics.

usage of self-organization in wireless sensor networks:

dynamic network configuration and maintenance, energy
efficient clustering scheme and increased network lifetime
through energy saving.
Recently, several proposals have been published
regarding formation of sensor network. Considering these
need of building self-organization systems, we propose a
SOWSN model system with two main features: network
backbone generation and cluster formation capabilities.
The two important steps are network formation based on
an approach of reduction in power consumption, and the
second one exhibiting self-organization properties in the
sensor network. The network formation is achieved
through a self-organization model proposed in rest of the
paper.

KeywordsWireless Sensor Network; Self-organization;

Architecture; Model; Cluster.

More complex and challenging systems are evolving

with the advancements in electronics and communication
industry. The numbers of users are increased for variety of
new applications to satisfy diverse needs of the society.
New devices (sensor nodes) are also coming up to work
with complex multi-core system in next few years.
Connectivity and mobility of the sensor nodes increases
the complexity of the applications. Availability of
bandwidth, energy storage capacity puts the limitations on
the system design. Always there exist finite resources and
the optimization of this resources increases system
complexity.
Many researchers have put forth number of models to
handle the complexity of next generation communication
systems such as autonomic computing and selforganization. Multifaceted modern system should have an
ability to configure, maintain, and execute the systems
which motivates autonomic computing. Each component
of such system is expected to exhibit self-configurability,
self-healing, self-optimization and self-protection. At the
same time, system should possess knowledge of the
environment in which it is being executed. The entities of a
WSN system must initiate the process of self-organization.
Self-organization property is exhibited by systems existing
in nature [3]. Thus, we can mirror the concept of selforganization in WSN.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section III
talks about the self-organization theory. In section IV we

II. MOTIVATION

I. INTRODUCTION
In Wireless sensor networks, sensor nodes are deployed
in monitoring area. It is a multi-hop sensor network system
communicating wirelessly. These networks have
characteristics such as limited resources, self-organization
(SO), multi-hop routing, dynamic network topology and
strong robustness etc. Researchers are carrying out work
mainly on network architecture, frameworks, topology,
dynamic resource management, energy optimization for
increased network life, mobile nodes etc. Study on
wireless sensor networks architecture is hot. In years ahead
usage of WSN would increase and it will be a part of
human life. Very soon WSN technology would be utilized
everywhere for gathering the information of systems that
are working in intelligent environments.
With the invention of micro heterogeneous devices,
designers and developers are facing difficulty to integrate
these wireless technologies into a common sensor network.
The sensor network capabilities can be extended using
self-organization to change their behavior dynamically.
When development of sensors is application dependent
then reutilization becomes difficult. Hence in wireless
sensor networks, self-organization of the nodes is essential
to achieve network wide characteristics. Following are
some of the issues which could be solved with the help of
978-1-4799-2102-7/14 $31.00 2014 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ICESC.2014.42

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B. Sensor network
Wireless sensor network consists of economical sensor
nodes densely deployed in monitoring area. The network is
formed by multi-hop wireless communication to sense,
gather and process the sensing object information in
monitoring area and send it to the sink. There is no
predetermined architecture in a flat network and all sensors
are identical. This could be applicable to small networks
where installation is simple and efficient. Hence network
lacks scalability and increases energy dissipation. Hence,
we have attempted to design an efficient model which is
able to self-organize dynamically and WSNs accomplish
their task with a great effectiveness. Our proposed
modeling approach uses cluster-based
network
architecture.

have formulated the architecture of SOWSN as per

possible protocol stack for WSN. In section V we
proposed a model for self-organizing wireless sensor
network.
III. SELF-ORGANIZATION
In 20th century, self-organizing theory was developed
and it consisted of dissipative structure and synergetic.
WSN realizes self-organization and forms dissipative
structure through:
Open ended system (irreversible processes).
The state of system must be far from equilibrium.
Strong nonlinear interaction inside the system and
positive feedback to evolve new system.
Fluctuation is to realize synergy through
competition.
Wireless sensor network is an open system and
internally this system is far from equilibrium state because
joining of sensor nodes is an iterative process. The process
of formation of clusters inside the system is nonlinear.
This system reaches to an ordering state by competition
between nodes to realize synergy. The above analysis
shows that the system constructed by wireless sensor
network satisfies the requirement of dissipative structure.
The founder of Synergetics, Haken defines selforganization as: It is self-organization if there is no
intervention given from outside when a system achieves
spatial, temporal or functional structure [4]. Sensor nodes
have limited energy, computing capability and storage.
The deployed nodes constantly alter and compete with
each other to build an ordering space-time structure. This
shows that applying self organization in wireless sensor
network is feasible.
A decade back Biswas and Phoha worked on a
development of multi-layered architecture for hybrid
sensor networks which was sponsored by (DARPA)
Defense Advance Research Projects Agency. That would
allow interoperable, software agent-based applications to
reside on top of a network of distributed, interactive,
adaptive, fixed and/or mobile sensor nodes that process
data in real time [1].
Here we adopt the vision that a system is selforganizing if its components interact dynamically to
accomplish a global function or behavior. Self-organizing
systems possess higher level properties which are not
present at the level of the individual components. These
are observed as a product of their interactions in our
model. For example individual sensor nodes are unaware
of global environment, i.e. who are their neighboring
nodes or which node is able to be a cluster head; but
through local interactions, they get knowledge about entire
network.

IV. SELF-ORGANIZING WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK

ARCHITECTURE
There is a huge demand of applications to satisfy
peoples requirements and desire that supports their
activities. Variety of electronic, mobile devices should be
connected to each other for sharing information. For all
these devices, properties such as the number, type,
location, and usage of devices, condition of
communication environment and traffic characteristics
dynamically changes at every moment. Here a network
would often face unexpected or unpredictable user
behavior, usage of network etc. Therefore, in this paper
we have proposed self-organizing architecture based on the
conventional network design methodology, where
structures, functionalities, and control parameters are
considered. Figure 1 shows the architecture of selforganizing wireless sensor network.
The architecture shows possible WSN protocol stack
and the functionalities of self-organization at each layer of
protocol stack. Self-organization is required at bottom
three layers for proper working of WSN without any
human intervention. Researchers have developed many
protocols specifically designed for WSNs, where energy
awareness is an essential consideration; and they have
focused routing protocols, since they might differ from
traditional networks [2].

A. Sensor node
Wireless sensor networks consist of a large number of
small sensor nodes. Hence, a cluster-based architecture can
be used to deal with the self-organization issues of large
networks. However, these sensors have some constraints
such as low storage and processing power, limited battery
lifetime, and short radio ranges.

Fig. 1. Self-organizing wireless sensor network architecture

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contribution of this model is the representation of all the

components and properties of a SOWSN. The WSN has a
limited lifetime, which can vary from some hours to
several months or years, which is denoted by LT, the
lifetime of the network (in seconds).
Let T = {1, 2,.., LT} and tj represents the jth second of life
of the network, with j T.
Another assumption is: Nr, which is the total number of
sensor nodes in WSN.

Self-organization must be achieved at physical, data

link and network layers. Self-organization can be thus
implemented in the functionalities of the protocols
designed for these layers. The role (need) of selforganization at physical, data link and network layers is as
shown in Table I. All the functionalities required for SO,
that are listed in the Table I would be the part of proposed
SOWSN model.

A. Sensor Node (Ni)

A sensor node has a number of characteristics such as its
unique identity, type, transmission range, state, and battery
level. Thus a sensor node is defined as:

TABLE I. ROLE OF SELF-ORGANIZATION

Layer

Functions

Communication

Physical
Layer

Implicit
Coordination

Sensing

Transmission
Coverage

Data
Link
Layer

Channel Sharing
Time
Synchronization
Routing

Network
Layer

Clustering
Neighbor
Discovery
Topology
Control

Role (Need) of Self-organization

Continuous
availability
of
communication channel is expected for
self-organization.
Implicit coordination means that
coordination information is not
communicated explicitly by signaling
messages, but is inferred from the local
environment. A node observes other
nodes in its neighborhood; based on
these
observations,
it
draws
conclusions about the status of the
network and reacts accordingly. A
typical example can be found in the
MAC layer of wireless ad hoc
networks. Suppose node N1 sends a
message to node N2, which in turn
forwards the message to node N3. If
N1 overhears the message of N2 to N3,
it knows that N2 has received it from
N1. In other words, the overhearing of
a message can serve as an implicit
acknowledgment [6].
Sensor node should be self-organized
to sense environmental changes.
As the battery level goes down, the
nodes transmission range reduces
gradually. Then the node goes out of
transmission range of its neighboring
nodes. This process stimulates selforganization.
Nodes must be able to be selforganized for channel sharing to avoid
collision.
Neighboring nodes need to synchronize
their schedules periodically to prevent
network congestion.
Sensor nodes must be able to take
routing decision in energy efficient
manner.
Self-organizing networks form clusters
for energy efficiency.
Nodes must be able to keep track of
their active neighbor nodes that fall in
their transmission range.
If single-hop communication with
cluster head is not possible, node must
go for multi-hop communication.

Ni = {ID, ST, R, S, B, L, MT}

Notations used in the model are described here.
Identifier [ID (Ni)] = i, i N where N= {1, 2, .. , Nr}.
Sensors type, [ST (Ni)] {temperature, humidity, sound,
acceleration, pressure, vibration, light, ...}.
Transmission Range [R] of a node is given by Equation 1.








(1)

PRij is the received power of a signal propagated from node

Ni to node Nj and PR > Pth. Due to the instability in the
transmission range, the area of a wireless sensor node can
reach is not essentially a circle and the range can vary
between r = [(1-) x R] and R, >0. Two nodes Ni and Nj
are able to communicate if they are adjacent and if the
distance (d) between them is less than their maximum
transmission range (R). Hence we can say that:
[d (Ni, Nj) < R (Ni) ^ d(Ni, Nj) < R (Nj)]  Ni and Nj
are reachable [5].
S represents the state of sensor node,
[S (Ni)] {Active, Inactive}.
B represents the battery level at jth second of lifetime of the
node [B (Ni (tj))] i.e. remaining capacity of node at time tj.
L is the localization,
[L (Ni)] {random, manual}.
The deployment of sensor nodes may be [5]:
Random (ad hoc deployment, for example,
dropped by an aircraft). In this case, the
geographical location of a node is unknown:
[L (Ni)]= (x, y, z), where x, y, z R are unknown.
Manual: sensor nodes are deployed in predetermined positions. In this case, the
geographical location of a node is well-known:
[L (Ni)] = (a, b, c), where a, b, c R are known.
MT is the Type of Mobility,
[MT (Ni)] {Stationary, Mobile}.

V. MODEL FOR SELF-ORGANIZING WIRELESS SENSOR

NETWORK

B. Self-organizing Wireless Sensor Network (SOWSN)

Based on above model representation theory of sensor
nodes, SOWSN can be defined as:

Typically wireless sensor nodes are resource limited.

Therefore, the major functions of the wireless sensor
network cannot be accomplished without collaboration
among sensor nodes. In this section, we present the selforganizing wireless sensor network model. The major

SOWSN = {Nr, A, D, NSK, To, M, NC, LT}

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Number of Sensor Nodes [NSC] / Cluster { fixed,

variable}.
Intra-Cluster Communication [ICC]{ Single-hop, Multihop}.
Clustering Type [CT] { Distributed, Centralized,
Hybrid}.

We have elaborated the SOWSN function with the help of

scenario that consist of homogenous sensor nodes which
are densely deployed in a square meter area. The
parameters in the function are explained as follows:
Number of Sensor nodes [Nr].
Deployment area [A] is in m2.
D is the Network Density given by,
D = (Nr  R2) / A.
Number of stationary sink nodes is represented as [NSK].
Topology in network is represented by,
[To] { Single-hop, Multi-hop, Tree}.
Mobility property also applies to SOWSN,
[M] { stationary, mobile, few nodes mobile}.
Number of Clusters,
[NC] { fixed, variable}.
Cluster heads are dynamically selected from the deployed
sensor nodes that give variable number of clusters.
Lifetime [LT] deployment process {continuous, onetime activity}.
LTSOWSN = max {LT (Ni)} OR LTSOWSN  .

VI. EXAMPLE OF SELF-ORGANIZATION IN WSN

A. Cluster Reformation
During the continuous operation of sensor network, the
battery level of sensor nodes as well as cluster heads goes
down. Due to this, sensor nodes and cluster heads become
inactive (dead). So, the cluster must be reformed
dynamically to maintain the network properly. This cluster
reformation is the example of self-organization as nodes
decide by their own to join which cluster. In the process of
cluster reformation, the nodes in the cluster with inactive
CH must join another cluster. Before going to inactive
(dead) state the CH notifies the nodes about its state that it
is going to be inactive. After receiving this message, nodes
search for new CHs that fall in their transmission range.
The connectivity of node with CH falling in its range is
single-hop. If there is no such CH then the nodes must
connect to CH via some neighboring node within its range
through multi-hop manner. Figure 3 shows the cluster
reformation process.

C. Cluster (C)
Our model basically deals with the process of
formation of various clusters from number of deployed
sensor nodes. Few assumptions are mentioned herewith.
Each cluster has a manager called as cluster head (CH).
Connectivity between the CHs and the sink node must be
guaranteed. When the CHs do not have a long transmission
range, the clustering scheme has to ensure the feasibility of
establishing an inter-CH route from every cluster head to
the sink node. Sensor nodes are grouped into clusters,
mainly to support several objectives, such as: load
balancing, fault tolerance, increased network lifetime, and
energy efficiency. This cluster-based organization reduces
broadcast overhead. A CH may be one of the nodes that is
richer in resources. Figure 2 shows a typical clustering in
wireless sensor network.

Fig. 3. Cluster reformation process.

For example, let CH4, as shown in Fig. 3, becomes

inactive. So the nodes that are managed by CH4 i.e. N1,
N2 and N3 will search for another CH falling in their
range. Since there is no such CH, nodes N1, N2 and N3
join the cluster with cluster head CH3 via neighboring
node N4. Thus, the connectivity to CH3 becomes multihop.

Fig. 2. Clustering in wireless sensor network.

We have listed the notations of cluster model such as:

CONCLUSION
The model aspires to permit the formation selforganizing sensor network through clustering of nodes.
Thus we have tried to establish the concept of selforganization in WSN. It is feasible to put the rules of selforganization theory into wireless sensor network and we

C = {CID, CHID, NSC, ICC, CT}

Notations used in the model are described here.
Cluster Identifier is represented by [CID].
Cluster Head Identifier is represented by [CHID].

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[3] Dan C. Marinescu, John P. Morrison, Chen Yu, Christoffer

Norvik, and Howard Jay Siegel, A Self-Organization
Model for Complex Computing and Communication
Systems, Second IEEE International Conference on SelfAdaptive and Self-Organizing Systems, IEEE 2008.
[4] Wang-Yan, Study on Model and Architecture of SelfOrganization Wireless Sensor Network, IEEE 2008.
[5] Lina M. Pestana Leo de Brito and Laura M. Rodrguez
Peralta, A Collaborative Model for Representing Wireless
Sensor Networks Entities and Properties, PM2HW2N08,
Vancouver, BC, Canada.
[6] Christian Prehofer and Christian Bettstetter, DoCoMo
Euro-Labs,
Self-Organization
in
Communication
Networks: Principles and Design Paradigms, IEEE
Communications Magazine July 2005.

have applied the widespread self-organizing principle to

wireless sensor network. For every application of wireless
sensor network, the design of self-organization is an
important problem and success of the whole network is
based on the design model. The same we have illustrated
here successfully. Our next step is to evaluate the model
with the help of different sets of parameters.
REFERENCES
[1] Pratik K. Biswas and Shashi Phoha, A Middleware-driven
Architecture for Information Dissemination in Distributed
Sensor Networks, ISSNIP, IEEE 2004.
[2] K. Sohraby, D. Minoli, T. Znati, WIRELESS SENSOR
NETWORKS- Technology, Protocols and Applications,
John Wiley Publication, Second edition.

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