On the effect of wireless communication range heterogeneity on WSN performance

In this paper, we investigate how the performance (i.e., the average message delivery delay) of IEEE 802.15.4-based WSNs is affected by the heterogeneity of wireless communication ranges of sensor nodes. An appropriate control of the wireless communication range of a sensor node should be beneficial in terms of reduced power consumption of the sensor node and performance improvement caused by reduced collisions in wireless communication. Utilizing our fluid-based analysis of large-scale IEEE 802.15.4 WSNs, we compare performances of WSNs with different settings of wireless communication ranges and also with three types of node placements (i.e., straight, lattice, and random). We conclude that the wireless communication range heterogeneity could improve (or degrade) the WSN performance and that the degree of improvement (or degradation) is more apparent in larger-scale WSNs than in smaller-scale WSNs.