Statistical properties of the delivery rate for single-sink and multiple-sink sensor networks

Abstract

In wireless sensor network applications where each node sends a packet to a sink, the stochastic nature of the link affects the delivery rate (total number of packets delivered at the sink). Based on a simple analytical model, we study the statistical properties of the delivery rate for scenarios without link or transport layer retransmission (best-effort routing). For these best-effort scenarios, we derive bounds for the expectation and variance of the delivery rate for single-sink and multiple-sink architectures. Our analytical findings are further validated through simulations using a realistic link-layer model.