Three Dimensional Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks

Both wireless ad hoc and sensor networks have brought us new possibilities to utilize useful information around the environments. Moreover, with the development of ad hoc and sensor networks, more complicated and challenging applications can be targeted by small and intelligent systems. However, since most of current research work on these networks focused on two dimensional space, they cannot be considered in three dimensional fields including space, atmosphere, or ocean.

While moving towards three dimensional networks, a number of important issues have to be addressed. First, the technologies used in two dimensional space should be modified or extended. This change ranges from the mechanism to deal with position information to communication protocols. Secondly, this modification should not hinder compatibility with nodes in the existing two dimensional networks. Besides the two major requirements, other research challenges including three dimensional network coverage and deployment must be carefully addressed. The objective of this special issue is to highlight the latest research addressing the aforementioned challenges. This special issue consists of 11 papers, including one survey paper, that are selected from 21 submissions and can be divided into three main categories such as localization, communication protocol and system, and topology control and deployment according to research interests. They are listed below.

• (1)

Communications protocol and system. This category includes the following papers.

• (i)

“iAMCTD: improved adaptive mobility of courier nodes in threshold-optimized DBR protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks” (N. Javaid et al.),

(ii)

“Development of energy-efficient routing protocol in wireless sensor networks using optimal gradient routing with on demand neighborhood information” (K. N. Kanna and B. Paramasivan),

(iii)

“A three-dimensional OFDM system with PAPR reduction method for wireless sensor networks” (Z. Chen and S. G. Kang).

(2)

Topology control and deployment. This category includes the following papers.

• (i)

“Redundancy model and boundary effects based coverage-enhancing algorithm for 3D underwater sensor networks” (J. Huang et al.),

(ii)

“Topology control algorithm considering antenna radiation pattern in three-dimensional wireless sensor networks” (M. Youn and J. Lee),

(iii)

“Twice deployment node balance algorithm for road network surveillance” (L. Chen et al.).

(3)

Localization. This category includes the following papers.

• (i)

“A graph embedding method based on sparse representation for wireless sensor network localization” (X. Yan et al.),

(ii)

“A Bayesian compressive sensing vehicular location method based on three-dimensional radio frequency” (Y. Wang et al.),

(iii)

“An eliminating method to improve localization accuracy” (L. Chen et al.),

(iv)

“Solving minimum cost three-dimensional localization problem in ocean sensor networks” (C. Zhang et al.).

(4)

Other. This category includes the following paper.

• (i)

“A survey on three dimensional wireless ad hoc and sensor networks” (B. Shah and K.-I. Kim).