Coordinator device election process for wireless sensor networks

摘要

An efficient coordinator device election process (600) that reduces the total power consumed during network initialization is provided. An initialization message propagates throughout a cluster of nodes. The initialization message contains a timing variable (604). Each node generates a random number (608) in response to receiving the initialization message. Each node sends a request for coordinator status to its neighboring nodes when its random number matches the timing variable (612). If the status request is detected (614) by the neighboring nodes, then the neighboring nodes become slave devices to the sender node (i.e. the coordinator device).