Neighbor discovery optimization for big data analysis in low-power, low-cost communication networks

Big data analysis generally consists of the gathering and processing of raw data and producing meaningful information from this data. These days, large collections of sensors, smart phones, and electronic devices are all connected in the network. One of the primary features of these devices is low-power consumption and low cost. Power consumption is one of the important research concerns in low-power, low-cost communication networks such as sensor networks. A primary feature of sensor networks is a distributed and autonomous system. Therefore, all network devices in this type of network maintain the network connectivity by themselves using limited energy resources. When they are deployed in the area of interest, the first step for neighbor discovery involves the identification of neighboring nodes for connection and communication. Most wireless sensors utilize a power-saving mechanism by powering on the system if it is off, and vice versa. The neighbor discovery process becomes a power-consuming task if two neighboring nodes do not know when their partner wakes up and sleeps. In this paper, we consider the optimization of the neighbor discovery to reduce the power consumption in wireless sensor networks and propose an energy-efficient neighbor discovery scheme by adapting symmetric block designs, combining block designs, and utilizing the concept of activating nodes based on the multiples of a specific number. The performance evaluation demonstrates that the proposed neighbor discovery algorithm outperforms other competitive approaches by analyzing the wasted awakening slots numerically.