International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Vol.2, No.8, August 2014 
E-ISSN: 2321-9637 
36 
A Study on Topology Control in Wireless Sensor 
Network 
Arathy S.lal1,Remya Annie Eapen2 
Department of ECE 1, 2, PG Student1 , Assistant Professor2 
Email: lalaaru.slal@gmail.com1,remyaannieeapen@gmail.com2 
Abstract- The sensor nodes in the Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are prone to deterioration due to many 
reasons, for example, harsh environment or running out of battery therefore, the WSNs are expected to be able 
to retain network connectivity. Topology Control (TC) is one of the most important technique used to reduce 
energy utilization . This technique integrate the decisions of network nodes about their transmission power for 
prolong network lifetime to save energy while preserving network connectivity. The topology control is a 
crucial process to maximize the network lifetime of wireless sensor networks. 
Index Terms- Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), Topology Control, Network lifetime 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have become a 
looming technology that has a extensive range of 
potential functioning including object tracking, 
environment monitoring, scientific forecasting and 
observing , traffic control and etc. The nodes in 
WSNs are more likely to be detached from each other. 
In WSNs, hundreds or thousands of sensor nodes are 
often randomly setup in inaccessible areas where 
battery cannot to be recharged or replaced .On the 
other hand, the sensor nodes are subject to 
unpredictable node flaw, for example, deployment in 
a hostile environment. 
The main idea of TC techniques is to regulate nodes’ 
transmission power to achieve several purpose such as 
reducing interference, reducing energy consumption, 
and increasing network. Transmission power control 
has very crucial effects on throughput and energy-efficiency 
of WSNs. A convenient transmission 
power for a node transmitting a packet to its 
neighboring node can save battery power, at the same 
time, the traffic carrying capacity of network can be 
upgraded if every node can adjust its transmission 
power to appropriate level when it is transmitting the 
relevant information. Topology control has three 
phases: sensor deployment, topology construction, 
and topology maintenance. First, the sensor 
deployment phase is common to all WSN 
applications. After this initialization phase, the second 
phase is to build a new unique topology, called the 
topology construction phase. In this phase, a new 
topology is constructed while preserving connectivity. 
The main goal of the topology construction phase is to 
construct a topology that saves energy and retain 
network connection. Soon after the topology 
construction phase the topology maintenance phase 
must begin. During this phase, nodes updates 
topology status and provoke a new topology 
construction phase. 
Over a network’s lifetime, this cycle continues until 
node energy is drained. 
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 
1. Paper [1] proposes a distributed protocol called 
COMPOW, in which the minimum common 
transmitting range is adopted for network 
connectivity .From the result analysis its evident that 
the value of transmitting range has the valuable 
effects, of reducing the controversy to access the 
wireless channel, maximizing network capacity and 
minimizing the energy consumption for wireless 
sensor network. 
2. As in paper [2] an Optimal Geographical Density 
Control (OGDC) algorithm is proposed which 
addresses both connectivity and sensing coverage in 
wireless sensor networks. The intention of the 
algorithm is to compute the minimum number of 
nodes that must be kept awake such that both sensing 
coverage and connectivity are preserved. The 
algorithm is decentralized but demands the network 
to be sufficiently dense to assure connectivity. 
3. In [3], the authors introduce a distributed 
algorithm called Local Minimum Spanning Tree 
(LMST) for topology control based on the 
construction of spanning trees by adjusting the 
transmission range . Each node runs an algorithm to 
build a spanning tree and control the transmission 
power to get the one hop nodes in the tree. The major 
drawback of LMST is that it needs the development 
of a spanning tree for each node, which urges a large 
overhead. 
4. In [4], the authors found out that the average range 
calculated by using a variable transmission range is 
half than when using the common transmission 
range. The network capacity does not depend on the 
number of nodes in the network, so the density of the 
network does not affect the network capacity, unlike 
the case of the common transmission range.
International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Vol.2, No.8, August 2014 
E-ISSN: 2321-9637 
37 
5. Moscibroda et al. [5] studied the drawback of 
traditional network models and resolved the impact 
of topology control on link scheduling based on a 
physical.Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise-Ratio 
(SINR) model. In contradiction to the deterministic 
graph models, a network model that is convenient for 
lossy WSNs has been proposed. 
6. Burri et al.[6] introduced a data-gathering protocol 
Dozer, that united considers topology control, 
medium access control (MAC) layer, and routing to 
save energy. Dozer utilize a tree-based network 
structure so as to coordinate the nodes sleeping 
schedules, to route the data, and achieves low radio 
duty cycles.. A simple network topology is proposed 
to estimate network lifetime and energy 
consumption. 
7. The enormous majority of the topology control 
results is been evaluated in various literatures. It is 
challenging to assess the real feasibility of 
clarification to real network scenarios, where many 
of the hypothesis made during the analysis may not 
hold true any longer. Even though much work has 
been done on the implementation of real-life test bed 
for WSNs, out of that hardly few papers have 
appeared on experimental studies of power control 
and topology solutions for sensor networks, with the 
prominent omissions provided by [7] and [8]. 
8. A distributed energy-efficient topology control 
(DETC) algorithm for home machine-to-machine 
(M2M) networks was has been established by the 
authors’in [9]. The DETC algorithm can execute 
only in home M2M networks. In this system, nodes 
create and maintain energy- efficient links 
autonomously and accomplish pro- longed lifetime 
with weaken energy cost. 
9. Ding et al.[10] enforced an adaptive partitioning 
scheme for node scheduling and topology control in 
sensor networks with the objective of reducing 
energy consumption. The connectivity-based 
partition scheme (CPA) divides nodes based on their 
measured connectivity instead of assuming 
connectivity based on their positions. This scheme 
guarantees connectivity for the backbone network. 
10. In [11], a node placement algorithm was 
proposed for a linear network topology. The 
proposed node placement algorithm recognize the 
number of forwarding message of each sensor and 
tries to balance the energy consumption of all sensor 
nodes. The research mainly focused on linear 
network topology and did not consider the two 
dimensional network topology. Even more, the 
developed deployment algorithm cannot balance the 
energy consumption for a randomly deployed WSN. 
11.As in [12] & [13] proposed the first approximate 
algorithms to estimate a virtual backbone using a 
Connected Dominating Set(CDS).The most popular 
method for energy-efficient(TC) in WSNs is the 
CDS based topology control(TC).TC has two phases 
specifically: topology construction and topology 
maintenance. In the topology construction phase, a 
desirable topological property is settled in the 
network while providing connectivity. Once the 
topology is constructed, topology maintenance phase 
begins in which nodes switch. In the reduced 
constructed topology CDS works as a virtual 
backbone. 
3. CONCLUSION 
In this paper, an extensive study on topology control 
issues in WSNs has been discussed. In this survey, 
reviewed the basic rules of topology control to realize 
the state of the arts. Different algorithms have been 
devised by many authors each of those tend to 
maintain energy efficient routing. 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 
I would like to thank the almighty for giving me the 
strength to work on this subject and t hereby coming 
up with this review paper. I am grateful to my guide 
and family members for supporting me and praying 
for me. I would like to express my gratitude towards 
the professors of Mar Baselios College of Engineering 
and Technology for their valuable guidance 
throughout. 
REFERENCES 
[1] Santi, "Topology control in wirelessadhoc and 
sensor networks," Instituto di Informatica e 
Telematica, Tech. Rep 2003, submitted to ACM 
Computing Surveys. 
[2] N. Li, J.C. Hou, L. Sha, Design and analysis of 
an mst-based topology control algorithm, IEEE 
Trans. Wirel. Commun. 2005,1195–1206. 
[3] H. Zhang , J. C. Hou, “Maintaining sensing 
coverage and connectivity in large sensor 
networks," in Proc. of NSF International 
Workshop on Theoretical and Algorithmic 
Aspects of Sensor, Ad Hoc Wireless, and Peer-to- 
Peer networks, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA, Feb. 
2004. 
[4] J. Gomez, A.T. Campbell, Variable- range 
transmission power control in wireless ad hoc 
networks, IEEE Trans. Mobile Comput. 6 (2007) 
87–99. 
[5] T. Moscibroda, R. Wattenhofer, A. Zollinger, 
Topology control meets 
sinr:: the scheduling complexity of arbitrary 
topologies, in:MobiHoc, 2006. 
[6] N. Burri, P. von Rickenbach, R. Wattenhofer, 
Dozer: ultra-low power 
data gathering in sensor networks, in: ACM/IEEE 
Fourth International Symposium on Information 
Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN’07), 2007, 
pp. 450–459. 
[7] S. Conner, J. Chhabra, M. Yarvis, L. 
Krishnamurthy, Experimental evaluation of
International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Vol.2, No.8, August 2014 
E-ISSN: 2321-9637 
38 
synchronization and topology control for in-building 
sensor network applications, in: 
Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Int. Workshop on 
Wireless Sensor Networks and Applications, 
WSNA, 2003, pp. 38_49 
[8] S. Lin, J. Zhang, G. Zhou, L. Gu, J. Stankovic, T. 
He, ATPC: Adaptive transmission power control 
for wireless sensor networks, in: Proceedings of 
the 4th ACM Int. Conference On Embedded 
Networked Sensor Systems, SenSys, 2006, pp. 
223_236 
[9] Lee C-Y, Yang Chu-Sing. Distributed energy-efficient 
topology control algorithm in home 
M2M networks. International Journal of 
Distributed Sensor Networks 2012:8. 
[10] Ding Y, Wang C, Xiao Li. An adaptive 
partitioning scheme for sleep scheduling and 
topology control in wireless sensor networks. 
IEEE Transactions on Parallel and 
DistributedSystems 2009;20(9):1352–65. 
[11] P. Cheng, C.N. Chuah, X. Liu, Energy-aware 
node placement in wireless sensor networks, in: 
Proceedings of IEEE Global Telecommunications 
Conference(GLOBECOM), November 2004, 
pp.3210–3214. 
[12] Ephremides A, Wieselthier J, Baker D. “A design 
concept for reliable mobile radio networks with 
frequency hopping signaling”. Proceedings of 
IEEE 1987;75(1):56–73. 
[13] Guha S, Khuller S. “Approximation algorithms 
for connected dominating sets” 
1998;20(April):374–87.

Paper id 28201419

  • 1.
    International Journal ofResearch in Advent Technology, Vol.2, No.8, August 2014 E-ISSN: 2321-9637 36 A Study on Topology Control in Wireless Sensor Network Arathy S.lal1,Remya Annie Eapen2 Department of ECE 1, 2, PG Student1 , Assistant Professor2 Email: [email protected],[email protected] Abstract- The sensor nodes in the Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are prone to deterioration due to many reasons, for example, harsh environment or running out of battery therefore, the WSNs are expected to be able to retain network connectivity. Topology Control (TC) is one of the most important technique used to reduce energy utilization . This technique integrate the decisions of network nodes about their transmission power for prolong network lifetime to save energy while preserving network connectivity. The topology control is a crucial process to maximize the network lifetime of wireless sensor networks. Index Terms- Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), Topology Control, Network lifetime 1. INTRODUCTION Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have become a looming technology that has a extensive range of potential functioning including object tracking, environment monitoring, scientific forecasting and observing , traffic control and etc. The nodes in WSNs are more likely to be detached from each other. In WSNs, hundreds or thousands of sensor nodes are often randomly setup in inaccessible areas where battery cannot to be recharged or replaced .On the other hand, the sensor nodes are subject to unpredictable node flaw, for example, deployment in a hostile environment. The main idea of TC techniques is to regulate nodes’ transmission power to achieve several purpose such as reducing interference, reducing energy consumption, and increasing network. Transmission power control has very crucial effects on throughput and energy-efficiency of WSNs. A convenient transmission power for a node transmitting a packet to its neighboring node can save battery power, at the same time, the traffic carrying capacity of network can be upgraded if every node can adjust its transmission power to appropriate level when it is transmitting the relevant information. Topology control has three phases: sensor deployment, topology construction, and topology maintenance. First, the sensor deployment phase is common to all WSN applications. After this initialization phase, the second phase is to build a new unique topology, called the topology construction phase. In this phase, a new topology is constructed while preserving connectivity. The main goal of the topology construction phase is to construct a topology that saves energy and retain network connection. Soon after the topology construction phase the topology maintenance phase must begin. During this phase, nodes updates topology status and provoke a new topology construction phase. Over a network’s lifetime, this cycle continues until node energy is drained. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Paper [1] proposes a distributed protocol called COMPOW, in which the minimum common transmitting range is adopted for network connectivity .From the result analysis its evident that the value of transmitting range has the valuable effects, of reducing the controversy to access the wireless channel, maximizing network capacity and minimizing the energy consumption for wireless sensor network. 2. As in paper [2] an Optimal Geographical Density Control (OGDC) algorithm is proposed which addresses both connectivity and sensing coverage in wireless sensor networks. The intention of the algorithm is to compute the minimum number of nodes that must be kept awake such that both sensing coverage and connectivity are preserved. The algorithm is decentralized but demands the network to be sufficiently dense to assure connectivity. 3. In [3], the authors introduce a distributed algorithm called Local Minimum Spanning Tree (LMST) for topology control based on the construction of spanning trees by adjusting the transmission range . Each node runs an algorithm to build a spanning tree and control the transmission power to get the one hop nodes in the tree. The major drawback of LMST is that it needs the development of a spanning tree for each node, which urges a large overhead. 4. In [4], the authors found out that the average range calculated by using a variable transmission range is half than when using the common transmission range. The network capacity does not depend on the number of nodes in the network, so the density of the network does not affect the network capacity, unlike the case of the common transmission range.
  • 2.
    International Journal ofResearch in Advent Technology, Vol.2, No.8, August 2014 E-ISSN: 2321-9637 37 5. Moscibroda et al. [5] studied the drawback of traditional network models and resolved the impact of topology control on link scheduling based on a physical.Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise-Ratio (SINR) model. In contradiction to the deterministic graph models, a network model that is convenient for lossy WSNs has been proposed. 6. Burri et al.[6] introduced a data-gathering protocol Dozer, that united considers topology control, medium access control (MAC) layer, and routing to save energy. Dozer utilize a tree-based network structure so as to coordinate the nodes sleeping schedules, to route the data, and achieves low radio duty cycles.. A simple network topology is proposed to estimate network lifetime and energy consumption. 7. The enormous majority of the topology control results is been evaluated in various literatures. It is challenging to assess the real feasibility of clarification to real network scenarios, where many of the hypothesis made during the analysis may not hold true any longer. Even though much work has been done on the implementation of real-life test bed for WSNs, out of that hardly few papers have appeared on experimental studies of power control and topology solutions for sensor networks, with the prominent omissions provided by [7] and [8]. 8. A distributed energy-efficient topology control (DETC) algorithm for home machine-to-machine (M2M) networks was has been established by the authors’in [9]. The DETC algorithm can execute only in home M2M networks. In this system, nodes create and maintain energy- efficient links autonomously and accomplish pro- longed lifetime with weaken energy cost. 9. Ding et al.[10] enforced an adaptive partitioning scheme for node scheduling and topology control in sensor networks with the objective of reducing energy consumption. The connectivity-based partition scheme (CPA) divides nodes based on their measured connectivity instead of assuming connectivity based on their positions. This scheme guarantees connectivity for the backbone network. 10. In [11], a node placement algorithm was proposed for a linear network topology. The proposed node placement algorithm recognize the number of forwarding message of each sensor and tries to balance the energy consumption of all sensor nodes. The research mainly focused on linear network topology and did not consider the two dimensional network topology. Even more, the developed deployment algorithm cannot balance the energy consumption for a randomly deployed WSN. 11.As in [12] & [13] proposed the first approximate algorithms to estimate a virtual backbone using a Connected Dominating Set(CDS).The most popular method for energy-efficient(TC) in WSNs is the CDS based topology control(TC).TC has two phases specifically: topology construction and topology maintenance. In the topology construction phase, a desirable topological property is settled in the network while providing connectivity. Once the topology is constructed, topology maintenance phase begins in which nodes switch. In the reduced constructed topology CDS works as a virtual backbone. 3. CONCLUSION In this paper, an extensive study on topology control issues in WSNs has been discussed. In this survey, reviewed the basic rules of topology control to realize the state of the arts. Different algorithms have been devised by many authors each of those tend to maintain energy efficient routing. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank the almighty for giving me the strength to work on this subject and t hereby coming up with this review paper. I am grateful to my guide and family members for supporting me and praying for me. I would like to express my gratitude towards the professors of Mar Baselios College of Engineering and Technology for their valuable guidance throughout. REFERENCES [1] Santi, "Topology control in wirelessadhoc and sensor networks," Instituto di Informatica e Telematica, Tech. Rep 2003, submitted to ACM Computing Surveys. [2] N. Li, J.C. Hou, L. Sha, Design and analysis of an mst-based topology control algorithm, IEEE Trans. Wirel. Commun. 2005,1195–1206. [3] H. Zhang , J. C. Hou, “Maintaining sensing coverage and connectivity in large sensor networks," in Proc. of NSF International Workshop on Theoretical and Algorithmic Aspects of Sensor, Ad Hoc Wireless, and Peer-to- Peer networks, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA, Feb. 2004. [4] J. Gomez, A.T. Campbell, Variable- range transmission power control in wireless ad hoc networks, IEEE Trans. Mobile Comput. 6 (2007) 87–99. [5] T. Moscibroda, R. Wattenhofer, A. Zollinger, Topology control meets sinr:: the scheduling complexity of arbitrary topologies, in:MobiHoc, 2006. [6] N. Burri, P. von Rickenbach, R. Wattenhofer, Dozer: ultra-low power data gathering in sensor networks, in: ACM/IEEE Fourth International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN’07), 2007, pp. 450–459. [7] S. Conner, J. Chhabra, M. Yarvis, L. Krishnamurthy, Experimental evaluation of
  • 3.
    International Journal ofResearch in Advent Technology, Vol.2, No.8, August 2014 E-ISSN: 2321-9637 38 synchronization and topology control for in-building sensor network applications, in: Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Int. Workshop on Wireless Sensor Networks and Applications, WSNA, 2003, pp. 38_49 [8] S. Lin, J. Zhang, G. Zhou, L. Gu, J. Stankovic, T. He, ATPC: Adaptive transmission power control for wireless sensor networks, in: Proceedings of the 4th ACM Int. Conference On Embedded Networked Sensor Systems, SenSys, 2006, pp. 223_236 [9] Lee C-Y, Yang Chu-Sing. Distributed energy-efficient topology control algorithm in home M2M networks. International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks 2012:8. [10] Ding Y, Wang C, Xiao Li. An adaptive partitioning scheme for sleep scheduling and topology control in wireless sensor networks. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and DistributedSystems 2009;20(9):1352–65. [11] P. Cheng, C.N. Chuah, X. Liu, Energy-aware node placement in wireless sensor networks, in: Proceedings of IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference(GLOBECOM), November 2004, pp.3210–3214. [12] Ephremides A, Wieselthier J, Baker D. “A design concept for reliable mobile radio networks with frequency hopping signaling”. Proceedings of IEEE 1987;75(1):56–73. [13] Guha S, Khuller S. “Approximation algorithms for connected dominating sets” 1998;20(April):374–87.