A distributed procedure for IEEE 802.15.4 PAN coordinator election in emergency scenarios

In an emergency scenario, the presence of a reliable communication infrastructure is fundamental. In response to massive catastrophes, such as earthquakes, floods, fires, etc., public authorities are expected to undertake actions to control and limit damages for people and for buildings. To this end, security agents are dispatched to the emergency area and they need to communicate to the people from a remote centre and they are responsible for emergency management. In this context, the use of IEEE 802.15.4 wireless personal area networks (WPANs) to allow communications among security agents seems particularly appropriate, thanks to their characteristics of self-configurability, adaptability, scalability, and low cost. Moreover, this kind of network can be used, if necessary, in a pervasive mode for data collection in the emergency area. In this work, we present an algorithm to self-configure an IEEE 802.15.4 WPAN by electing, in a distributed manner, a suitable node for the WPAN coordination. Our approach achieves a reduction of the network depth and a better distribution of nodes at different levels of the network.