ABSTRACT
This chapter includes traditional works and presents a discussion of their advantages and drawbacks. It presents the generalities and features of centralized and distributed Wireless Sensor Networks and a proposed classification of them. The chapter describes the main strategies in multisink environments; and a theoretical comparison between techniques. Multisink platforms arise in response to this kind of problem; a multisink platform provides redundancy, avoids problems in the data collection, and increases the efficiency of the application. Multisink scenarios that improve the performance of a network based on different techniques are analysed. In multisink techniques, every device is able to collect information from the area surrounding through one or more sensors, process this information in a local manner and send it through other devices. Centralized formation techniques are suitable for networks in which the processing power capacity relies mostly on a unique device. The topology formation is essential when the sensor network application looks for having a better resource control.
