Patent ID: 8233463

Claim:
A method for constructing a virtual backbone in a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), the method comprising: setting a ‘Dominator’ status for a gateway or a sink node within the WSN, setting a ‘CoveredByDominator’ status for each neighbor node positioned in the transmission range of a node for which the ‘Dominator’ status is set, setting a ‘NULL’ status for each of other nodes, transmitting a beacon frame by periods from each node to neighbor nodes thereof within the WSN; receiving, by each node having the ‘CoveredByDominator’ status, the beacon frame from neighbor nodes having the ‘NULL’ status, computing a time duration of a defer timer, and enabling the defer timer to operate by the computed time duration; and changing, to the ‘Dominator’ status, a status of a node whose defer timer expires earliest among the nodes having the ‘CoveredByDominator’ status, wherein computing the time duration of the defer timer utilizes a value of signal strength and a quantity of neighbor nodes; wherein computing a time of the defer timer occurs when each node having CoveredByDominator status recovers a beacon frame from neighbor nodes having a null status, respectively, wherein the value of signal strength indicates a wireless link quality, and wherein an exchange of information is performed through the beacon without changing an existing beacon frame.