Algorithm and Theory for Robust Wireless Sensor Networks 2014

Wireless sensor networks raise a number of interesting and undiscovered algorithmic issues, but traditional techniques are not sufficient to solve these problems in the right way.This is specifically due to constrained energy and computation capability, nondeterministic sensor failures, channel impairments, node mobility, hostile and distrusted environments, and even external attackers. In all these respects, wireless sensor networks exhibit substantial vulnerability when compared to other networks. It is challenging to design a robust wireless sensor network by devising novel algorithms or developing new theories whilst introducing minimal communication overhead and energy consumption. For example, sensor nodes are often deployed in outdoor or hazardous environments. Power outage of sensors can lead to node failure and cause many serious problems. Recently, an aggressive approach has been developed that wirelessly recharges the sensor nodes to increase the robustness of the sensor networks. The charging tasks can be performed by single or multiple mobile machines. However, the algorithmic and theoretical issues in the wireless charging problem for WSNs were not fully explored. The main focus of this special issue is devoted to a deeper understanding of the algorithms and theories which are developed to build up a robust wireless sensor network. Moreover, it is to push the theoretical and practical research forward for a deeper understanding in the fundamental algorithm, modeling, and analysis techniques of robust wireless sensor networks. Totally, we have received 50 submissions coming from different countries all around the globe in response to call for paper. Each accepted article has been reviewed by at least three reviewers. In the end, 17 articles are revised and selected for publishing in this special issue. We believe that accepted papers provide a good balance of the application of algorithms and theories to different networking problems for robust wireless sensor networks.