Cooperation in wireless sensor networks: A multiagent perspective

This article investigates the cooperation properties, coalition formation and control, and the logics of cooperative strategies underpinning multihop data forwarding, in-network data aggregation and clustering in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Through modeling WSNs as multiagent system and the individual node as a cooperative agent, we formalized CL-WSN, a cooperation logic for WSNs based on the general multiagent logic of action and cooperation. In CL-WSN, k-Hop Agents Model and Multiagent Model respectively abstract the local cooperative groups and the global cooperative system, and coalition logic for actions and contingent control logic provide the notations and axioms for coalition formation and control in WSNs. Reasoning about cooperation showed that CL-WSN may represent the logics of cooperative strategies, formalize the cooperation structures, and reason about coalition formation and control in self-organization of WSNs. © 2010 Binary Information Press.