A Data Delivery Mechanism to Support Mobile

Users in Wireless Sensor Networks

Euisin Lee, Younghwan Choi, Soochang Park, Donghun Lee, and Sang-Ha Kim
Department of Computer Engineering
Chungnam National University
220 Gung-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305 764, Republic of Korea
Emails: {eslee, yhchoi, winter, dhlee}@cclab.cnu.ac.kr and shkim@cnu.ac.kr

Abstract— Wireless sensor networks traditionally consist of
sensors perceiving data and sinks gathering the data. In addition,
users receive required information from the sinks via
infrastructure networks. The users, however, should receive the
information from the sinks through multi hop communications
of disseminated sensor nodes if such users move into the sensor
networks without infrastructure networks. Unlikely, the
previous works only considered mobility of sinks, which function
users. Nevertheless, it is difficult for such approaches about
mobility to exploit the existing data-centric routing algorithms
and also for the mobile sinks to function as gateways to connect
with infrastructure. To improve the shortcomings, we suggest a
novel viewpoint of mobility for wireless sensor networks and
propose a novel architecture and mechanism to support the
mobility with multiple static sinks in this paper. The multiple
static sinks, which are connected with each other via
infrastructure, provide high throughput and low latency.
Furthermore, they improve hotspot problems and prolong
network lifetime. The proposed mechanism finally is evaluated
by simulation results about throughput, latency, and network
lifetime.
infrastructure networks except sensor networks are more
actually. Because, infrastructure networks in these
applications cannot be used because they are damaged as a
result of the war or the disaster. Hence an assumption that a
user and a sink can directly communicate through internet has
a problem that is not actually. Therefore communication
between the user and the sink inside sensor fields is supported
by only sensor nodes.
Second form is same with figure 3. It identifies a user with a
sink. So it supports a mobility of the user by reflecting
movement of the user with the direct movement of the sink
[5~9]. But, researches for this form have also various
problems. First of all, they cannot use existing effective data
collection algorithms [2][3][4] between a sink and sensor
nodes based on data in static sink sensor networks. Because,
such algorithms can hardly be exploited due to location change
of sink which collects data if sinks in sensor networks have

Index Terms— wireless sensor networks, mobility, users, and

multiple static sinks

1. Introduction

Wireless sensor networks traditionally consist of sensors

perceiving data and sinks gathering the data. In addition,
users receive required information from the sinks via
infrastructure networks. A mobility model in wireless sensor
networks, mentioned above, can classify according to each Figure 1. Typical wireless sensor networks model
objects. Namely, it is a mobility of sensor node, a mobility of
a sink, and a mobility of a user. Hence, deciding a mobility of
what kind of object for sensor networks that suits sensor
networks according to various applications is important.
Recently, applications transmitting data to moving users
inside sensor fields such as rescue in disaster area or
maneuver in the war zone are on the rise in large-scale sensor
networks [5]. But, until now, such researches support a
mobility of user by only two forms for these applications.
First form is same with figure 2. It supports a mobility of a
user on the assumption that the user communicates directly
sinks through infrastructure networks, namely, internet like
communication systems in traditional sensor networks [1]. Figure 2. A model to support Figure 3. Mobile sink model
But, in applications such as rescues in disaster area or mobility of user through infra
maneuvers in the war zone, circumstances without structure networks, namely,
internet & satellite.

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mobility. They have also a defect which is hard to make full
use of gateway between sensor networks and Internet. The
other problem is that the cost of the overhead to reorganize
network topology and reconstruct dissemination paths from
sensor nodes to the mobile sink is expensive. Sink mobility
causes topology reconstruction in case of the network
topology where the sink participates in network construction.
Also, although the sink doesn’t join in network topology
construction, there could be control overhead for regenerating
data dissemination paths to new sink location. It is enormous
overheads to sensor nodes with the constrained energy.
Hence, we propose a novel communication model of
collecting data through sensor node using static sink and
delivering the data to a moving user within sensor fields and a
novel mechanism to support mobility of users. But, one static
sink is a problem that when the user is a long distance, the data
isn’t effectively transmitted because a communication
between the user and the sink must communicate through
multiple hops of sensor nodes. Also it is a hot spot problem
which is carried a disproportionate amount of traffic to sensor
nodes near the sink
Accordingly, we will solve the problems of a single static
sink using multiple static sinks as shown in Figure 4. And we
will support the ultimate goal of this paper, namely, a mobility
of a user.
In our proposed mechanism of this paper, if a user intends
to obtain information on moving, the user disseminates
interest to the nearest sink via a sensor network. The sink,
received interest from the user, collects information from
sensor nodes using the existing data collection algorithm in
static sink sensor networks [2][3][4]. The sink shares the
information with every sinks through infrastructure networks.
The user requests the shared information to the nearest sink
according to a location of the user and receives the shared
information from the sink.
A proposed mechanism can obtain various advantages with
multiple static sinks. First of all, a user selects a nearest sink to
its position regardless of location. Therefore short hops
communications between a user and a sink are possible. So, it
saves energy and enhances data delivery ratio, and reduces
delay. Also, because a user requires a dissemination of
interests through multiple static sinks, locations of data
collection are diverse. It solves a hot spot problem which is
carried a disproportionate amount of traffic to sensor nodes
Figure 4. A Novel Communication Model of
Wireless Sensor Networks
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near the sink [15]. As a result, the lifetime of the sensor
networks will be able to increase because the balanced energy
consumption of sensor nodes is possible.
We verified through simulation that the lifetime of sensor
networks is prolonged because a use of multiple static sinks
decreases an energy consumption of sensor nodes. Also, we
verified that a performance about the data delivery ratio and
the delay never falls nevertheless a communication between
the user and the sink for guaranteeing movement of the user is
supported by only sensor nodes without infrastructure
networks, namely, internet(not understand).
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2,
we present mobility of sensor networks. Section 3 describes a
proposal mechanism. Simulation results are presented in
Section 4 to evaluate the effectiveness of our design and
analyze the impact of important parameters. Section 5
concludes the paper.
2. Mobility of Sensor Networks
Wireless sensor networks typically consist of the three
objects as shown in Figure 1: user, sink, and sensor node [1].
Depending on the application, wireless sensor networks can be
classified by considering the motion of the objects. We believe
that each of the following requires different communication
architectures and mechanisms.
A. Mobility of sensor node
Sinks collecting data and users using information of
collected data are static, whereas sensor nodes can move
inside sensor fields. Consider, for example, a scenario
involving a hazardous materials leak in an urban environment.
Metaphorically speaking, we would like to throw a ‘bucket’ of
sensor nodes into a building through a window or doorway.
The nodes are equipped with chemical sensors that allow them
to detect the relevant hazardous material, and deploy
themselves throughout the building in such a way that they
maximize the area ‘covered’ by these sensors. Data from the
nodes are transmitted to a base station located safely outside
the building, where they are assembled to form a live map
showing the concentration of hazardous compounds within the
building.
B. Mobility of sink
Sensor nodes deployed inside sensor fields and users using
information is static, whereas sinks collecting data can move
inside sensor fields. For example, consider the example of
habitat monitoring in which a team of life scientists are riding
in a vehicle to track an animal. Here the vehicle has to follow
the movement of the animal to track it. The vehicle can be
equipped with a powerful sink (making it a mobile sink) to
collect the data from the sensor nodes along the track of the
animal.
C. Mobility of user
In this case, sensor nodes deployed inside sensor fields and
sinks collecting data from sensor nodes is static, whereas users
using information of collected data can move. For example,
consider operations in the war zone. The headquarters located
Feb. 12-14, 2007 ICACT2007
Figure 5. Dissemination of sink announcement Figure 6. Mobility support of the user
message
in the outskirts of the war zone deploy sensor nodes in the war
zone and collect locations and movements of enemies from
sensor nodes. Through collected data, the headquarters
elaborate a plan of operations and delivery the operations to
soldiers in the war zone. Then, soldiers carry out the
operations and by extension, will collect directly data from
sensor nodes to obtain the latest information.
3. Description of Mechanism
A. Overview of Mechanism
In our mechanism, if a user intends to obtain information on
moving inside sensor networks, the user disseminates interest
to the nearest sink via sensor nodes, and then the user receives
results of interest from the sink. Also, if the nearest sink of the
user changes the user requests the results to new the nearest
sink and receives the results from the new sink.
This paper makes the following assumptions:
• A user can communicate multiple static sinks through
only sensor nodes, because networks within sensor fields
are without infrastructure networks.
• Multiple static sinks are deployed in an arbitrary
position in the outskirts of sensor fields connected with
infrastructure networks as internet.
• Multiple static sinks can directly communicate other
sinks via infrastructure networks.
• The data which one sink collects is aggregated by the
sink. All sinks share the aggregated data via infrastructure
networks.
To implement the proposed mechanism, we need to address
the following phases: dissemination of sink announcement
message, interest dissemination of user, data collection of sink,
information sharing of multiple static sinks, mobility support
of user, and information propagation of sink. We detail each
phase to next section.
B. Dissemination of sink announcement message
To the initial stage of sensor network, if a sink is located in
an arbitrary position in the outskirts of sensor fields which is
connected with infrastructure networks as internet it has
flooded a sink announcement message to announce itself
inside the whole sensor fields like figure 5. As a result of
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Figure 7. Information propagation of the sink
flooding a sink announcement message, every sensor nodes
have known hop counts and next hop neighbor sensor node to
each sink. And every sensor nodes have known the nearest
sink from location of themselves through hop counts to each
sink.
C. Interest dissemination of the user
While moving inside the sensor fields, if a user wants to
collect a data from sensor fields, the user selects the nearest
sensor node from location of itself as first agent. And the user
delivers an interest to the first agent. The first agent which is
delivered the interest from user forwards the interest to a next
hop neighbor node toward the nearest sink. The next hop
sensor node which is delivered the interest also forwards a
next hop neighbor node toward the nearest sink. This process
is continued until the sink. So, the sink receives the interest of
the user. Also, a back route from the sink to the user for the
interest has established through this process.
D. Data collection of the sink
Sensor networks with a static sink are a network that
sensing data from sensor nodes should be transmitted to the
static sink through multi-hop communication. Routing
algorithms to collect data in sensor networks with a static sink
are used in scenario of various types, for example, a scenario
generating data by periods, a scenario generating a minority
event, and a scenario detecting a moving object, etc.
Hence, a user will can select and use the most appropriate
routing algorithm with static sink according to a scenario.
Such research was advanced already plentifully [2][3][4]. So
we will not mention anymore in this paper. Therefore, we use
one in the existing routing algorithm as the routing algorithm
to collect data in this paper.
E. Information sharing of multiple static sinks
As shown in Fig. 1, a sink in typical sensor networks takes
charge of the function as gateways for connection with
infrastructure networks [1]. And various papers in relation to
multiple static sinks also indicate the connection between a
sink and an infrastructure network and the connection between
all sinks as an assumption [10 - 13]. Therefore, in this paper, it
is a sufficient propriety that all sinks placed in the edge of a
sensor field can communicate with the other sinks via
Feb. 12-14, 2007 ICACT2007
 Figure 8. Network lifetime for the number of sink and sensor node
infrastructure networks. Hence, in proposed mechanism, a
sink which is delivered an interest from a user collects data
from sensor fields and aggregates the collected data. Next, the
sink will share aggregated information with the other sinks
through infrastructure networks.
F. Mobility support of the user
The user may move to other place after sending interest to
sink by agent. In this case, the user selects another agent and
creates a new connection from the original agent to new
selected agent. The user can receive the aggregated
information from sink through this connection. Thus, mobility
of the user is guaranteed.
The user can obtain the information of neighbor nodes in
radio range of the first agent by reply message received from
the first agent. If the user moves out of RF range of the first
agent, then the user will retransmit the agent selection message
with same RF range of the agent. All sensor nodes which have
received this message send a reply message which contains the
information of neighbor node in their radio range to the user.
As shown in Figure 6, the user checks whether there is sensor
nodes which are a neighbor node both in RF range of first
agent and in RF range of the sensor node sent the reply
messages. Among the sensor nodes which have the connection
node in their radio range, the user selects the nearest sensor
node from user as second agent. The user settles this selected
sensor node as second agent and informs the connection nodes
between the first agent and the second agent to the second
agent. Second agent creates the connection to the first agent
through the connection node informed by user. By this way,
the path from the first agent to the user can be created
according to movement of user.
G. Information propagation of the sink
A sink delivers the aggregated information of the collected
data to first agent through the connected path. The first agent
delivers the aggregated information to last agent through the
connection of agents. Last agent deliveries the aggregated
information to the user.
As shown in figure 7, if the nearest sink from the user
changes, the user requests the information to the new nearest
sink and receives the information from the new nearest sink.
4. Performance Evaluation
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Figure 9. Residual energy for the number of sink
In this section, we evaluate the performance of a proposed
mechanism through simulations. We first describe our
simulation model and simulation metrics. We next evaluate
how environment factors and control parameters affect the
performance of a proposed mechanism.
A. Simulation Model and Metrics
We implement the proposed mechanism in the Qualnet
ver.3.8 [14]. A sensor node’s transmitting and receiving power
consumption rate are 0.66W and 0.39W respectively. The
transceiver in the simulation has a 200m radio range. Each
interest packet is 36 bytes long and the data packet has 64
bytes. The sensor network consists of 50 sensor nodes, which
are uniformly deployed in a 1000m x 1000m field.
The multiple static sinks are located in the outskirts of
sensor fields. The number of user is one. And the default speed
of user is set to 10 m/sec. the user disseminates an interest at an
interval of 10 second. Every sensor nodes receive the interest
and generate only one sensing data for the interest. This is
defined as one interest round. Namely, one interest round is 10
second. The simulation lasts for 500 seconds.
We use for metrics to evaluate the performance of the
proposed mechanism. The network lifetime is defined as the
number of the interest round first sensor node die. The
residual energy is defined as the residual energy of sensor
nodes at time, namely, the interest round that first sensor node
die. The data delivery ratio is the ratio of the number of
successfully received reports at a user to the total number of
reports generated by every sensor node. The delay is defined
as the average time between the time a sensor node transmits a
report and the time a user receives the report.
We compare a static sink model without a mobile user to a
multiple static sinks model with a mobile user in the
simulation. We express a direct communication model
between the user and the sink as ‘sink 1 and not user’ and a
user movement model as ‘sink 1 and user 1’ according to the
number of sink in figures of performance evaluation. Here ‘1’
is case that sink is one. If the number of sink changes, this
numerical value reflects in figures of performance evaluation.
B. Impact of the number of multiple static sinks
We first study the impact of the number of sinks on the
proposed mechanism’s performance. The number of sinks
varies from 1, 2, 3, to 4. And the number of sensor nodes
varies from 50, 100, 150, to 200. Sinks have a maximum speed
Feb. 12-14, 2007 ICACT2007
 Figure 11. Delay for the number of sink and sensor node
Figure 12. Data delivery ratio for user speed
of 10mm/s. In this part, we compare one static sink without the
user to multiple static sinks with the user.
Figure 8 shows the number of interest round, namely,
network lifetime. One static sink model without a mobile user
is of small number due to hotspot problem of sensor nodes
near the sink. But, the number of interest round of multiple
static sinks model with mobile user is higher than the number
of interest round of one static sink sensor network even though
the sinks are more than 3. Network lifetime, namely, interest
round, prolonged because energy consumption of sensor
nodes became evenly. Figure 9 shows the residual energy at
time that first sensor node dies in simulation circumstances of
50 sensor nodes As shown in Figure 9, the energy
consumption of sensor nodes become more evenly because it
solves hotspot problem due to addition of sink. Figure 10
shows the data delivery ratio. A model with mobile user is
lower than a model without user because it must delivery
information from sink to user. But, the hop count between sink
and user decreases due to addition of sink because data fails
reduce. Therefore the data delivery ratio of a model with
mobile user approaches a model without user. Figure 11 shows
the delay. The delay of a model with mobile user is longer than
the delay of a model without user because it must delivery
information from sink to user. Therefore the data delivery ratio
of a model with mobile user also approaches a model without
user.
C. Impact of the number of sensor nodes
We next evaluate the impact of the number of sensor nodes
on the proposed mechanism. The number of sensor nodes
ISBN 978-89-5519-131-8 93560
Figure 12. Data delivery ratio for user speed
Figure 13. Delay for user speed
varies from 50, 100, 150, to 200. As shown in Figure 8, 10, and
11, the proposed mechanism never falls a performance
nevertheless the number of sensor node increase.
D. Impact of the user’ mobility
We last evaluate the impact of the user’s moving speed on
the proposed mechanism. In the default simulation setting, we
vary maximum speed of a user from 6, 8, 10, 12, to 20m/s. In
this part, we compare a network model of one static sink
without the user to a network model of four static sinks with
the user. Figure 12 shows data delivery ratio when the user’
moving speed changes. Because the static sink model without
the user is not user, it indicates the same result independent of
the user’s moving speed. While the multiple static sinks model
with the user decrease according to increment of the user’s
moving speed. But the data delivery ratio remains around 0.9 –
1.0 nevertheless the user move faster. Figure 13 shows the
delay about data delivery, which increases only slightly as the
user moves faster, because it increases the number of agent
from the sink to the user. Figure 13 shows that the network
lifetime decreases as the user’ moving speed increases. The
faster a user moves, the more a user needs the number of agent
for connection between the user and the sink.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, we propose a novel sensor network model and
a novel mechanism to support mobility of users in wireless
sensor networks based on multiple static sinks In proposed
network model, because multiple static sinks can
- 249 - Feb. 12-14, 2007 ICACT2007
communicate with the other sinks as short hop via
infrastructure networks, the user receives the information with
higher data delivery ratio and faster time. And the lifetime of
the sensor networks increase because the balance energy
consumption of sensor nodes is possible.
We verified that the lifetime of sensor networks is
prolonged because a use of multiple static sinks decreases a
consumption of sensor nodes. Also, we verified that a
performance about the data delivery ratio and the delay never
falls nevertheless a communication between the user and the
sink for guaranteeing movement of the user is supported by
only sensor nodes without infrastructure networks, namely,
internet.

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