Order-Optimal Data Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks - Part I: Regular Networks

— The predominate traffic patterns in a wireless sensor network are many-to-one and one-to-many communication. Hence, the performance of wireless sensor networks is characterized by the rate at which data can be disseminated from or aggregated to a data sink. In this paper, we consider the data aggregation problem. We demonstrate that a data aggregation rate of log n n () is optimal and that this rate can be achieved in wireless sensor networks using a generalization of cooperative beamforming called cooperative time-reversal communication.