Abstract
Since wireless sensor networks generally have the capability of network recovery, malfunction of a few sensor nodes in a sensor network does not cause a crucial problem paralyzing the sensor network. The malfunction of the sink node, however, is critical. If the sink node of a sensor network stops working, the data collected by sensor nodes cannot be delivered to the gateway because no other sensor nodes can take the place of the sink node. This paper proposes a TDMA-based wireless sensor network equipped with dual sink nodes, with a view to preventing data loss in the case of malfunction of a sink node. A secondary sink node, which synchronizes with a primary sink node and receives data from other sensor nodes in normal situations, takes the role of the primary sink node in the case of malfunction of the primary sink, thereby eliminating the possibility of data loss. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is demonstrated through experiments.
