Scalable multi-dimensional range queries and routing in data-centric sensor networks

Large scale wireless ad hoc networks of computers, sensors, PDAs etc. (i.e. nodes) are revolutionizing connectivity and leading to a paradigm shift from centralized systems to highly distributed and dynamic environments. An example of ad hoc networks are sensor networks, which are usually composed by small units able to sense and transmit to a sink elementary data which are successively processed by an external machine. Recent improvements in the memory and computational power of sensors, together with the reduction of energy consumptions, are rapidly changing the potential of such systems, moving the attention towards data-centric sensor networks. In these sensor networks, data or events are named by attributes that have scalar values, so one natural way to query events of interest is to use a multidimensional range query. W-Grid acts as a distributed index and allows multi-dimensional data management capability since nodes' virtual coordinates can act as a distributed database without needing neither special implementation or reorganization and supports multi-dimensional range queries. In this paper we introduce range query features in W-Grid and we show, by means of an extensive number of simulations, the performance and network costs in comparison with a well-know competitor solution in literature.