Towards a Performability Analysis for Environmental Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor and actor networks constitute one of the supporting technologies for cooperative applications. Particularly, in the case of environmental monitoring systems, ambient conditions can be conveniently modified by means of the so-called actuators actors, which are driven by commands issued by a decision-making process on the basis of the information gathered by sensor nodes. In this context, sensor nodes are typically deployed at strategic locations on the basis of application requirements. These locations may be far apart from each other, leading to unfeasible or highly energy-consuming transmission distances. This paper provides an assessment of the impact of relay node insertion on performance and reliability.