Block design-based asynchronous neighbor discovery protocol for wireless sensor networks

Neighbor discovery is a significant research topic in wireless sensor networks. After wireless sensor devices are deployed in specific areas, they attempt to determine neighbors within their communication range. This paper proposes a new Block design-based Asynchronous Neighbor Discovery protocol for sensor networks called BAND. We borrow the concept of combinatorial block designs for neighbor discovery. First, we summarize a practical challenge and difficulty of using the original block designs. To address this challenge, we create a new block generation technique for neighbor discovery schedules and provide a mathematical proof of the proposed concept. A key aspect of the proposed protocol is that it combines two block designs in order to construct a new block for neighbor discovery. We analyze the worst-case neighbor discovery latency numerically between our protocol and some well-known protocols in the literature. Our protocol reveals that the worst-case latency is much lower than others. Finally, we evaluate the performance of BAND and existing representative protocols through the simulation study. The results of our simulation study show that the average and maximum latency of BAND is about 40% lower than that of existing protocols. Furthermore, BAND spends approximately 30% less energy than others during the neighbor discovery process.