Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-60). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 43-44). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-107). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri--Rolla, 2007. / Vita. The entire thesis text is included in file. Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed December 11, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-120).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-136). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 180-187).

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-68).

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of a number of nodes, each typically having a small amount of non-replenishable energy. Some of the nodes have sensors, which may be used to gather environmental data. A common network abstraction used in WSNs is the (source, sink) architecture in which data is generated at one or more sources and sent to one or more sinks using wireless communication, possibly via intermediate nodes. In such systems, wireless communication is usually implemented using radio. Transmitting or receiving, even on a low power radio, is much more energy-expensive than other activities such as computation and consequently, the radio must be used judiciously to avoid unnecessary depletion of energy. Eventually, the loss of energy at each node will cause it to stop operating, resulting in the loss of data acquisition and data delivery. Whilst the loss of some nodes may be tolerable, albeit undesirable, the loss of certain critical nodes in a multi-hop routing environment may cause network partitions such that data may no longer be deliverable to sinks, reducing the usefulness of the network. This thesis presents a new heuristic known as node reliance and demonstrates its efficacy in prolonging the useful lifetime of WSNs. The node reliance heuristic attempts to keep as many sources and sinks connected for as long as possible. It achieves this using a reliance value that measures the degree to which a node is relied upon in routing data from sources to sinks. By forming routes that avoid high reliance nodes, the usefulness of the network may be extended. The hypothesis of this thesis is that the useful lifetime of a WSN may be improved by node reliance routing in which paths from sources to sinks avoid critical nodes where possible.