Hop-Distance Estimation in Wireless Sensor Networks with Applications to Resources Allocation

Abstract

We address a fundamental problem in wireless sensor networks, how many hops does it take a packet to be relayed for a given distance? For a deterministic topology, this hop-distance estimation reduces to a simple geometry problem. However, a statistical study is needed for randomly deployed WSNs. We propose a maximum-likelihood decision based on the conditional pdf of . Due to the computational complexity of , we also propose an attenuated Gaussian approximation for the conditional pdf. We show that the approximation visibly simplifies the decision process and the error analysis. The latency and energy consumption estimation are also included as application examples. Simulations show that our approximation model can predict the latency and energy consumption with less than half RMSE, compared to the linear models.