在无线传感器网络中应用虚拟骨干，可以有效地节约能量、减少干扰、延长网络寿命，在几何路由算法和网络拓扑控制等方面具有广泛的应用.虚拟骨干可以模型化为图中的连通控制集.主要从近似算法角度介绍连通控制集及其各种变形在国内外的研究现状及最新进展，侧重于研究方法和理论结果，为相关研究人员提供参考.

This paper studies approximation algorithm for the degree-balanced spanning tree (DBST) problem. Given a graph the goal is to find a spanning tree T such that ∑v ∈ VdegT(v)2 is minimized, where degT(v) denotes the degree of node v in tree T. The idea of taking squares on node degrees is to manifest the role of nodes with large degree, and thus minimizing the sum will result in a comparatively balanced degree distribution. This is a non-linear objective function. We prove that DBST is NP-hard, and then develop a primal–dual based algorithm with a guaranteed performance ratio.

To save energy and alleviate interference, connected dominating set (CDS) was proposed to serve as a virtual backbone of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Because sensor nodes may fail due to accidental damages or energy depletion, it is desirable to construct a fault tolerant virtual backbone with high redundancy in both coverage and connectivity. This can be modeled as a k-connected m-fold dominating set (abbreviated as (k, m)-CDS) problem. A node set C ⊆ V (G) is a (k, m)-CDS of graph G if every node in V(G)\C is adjacent with at least m nodes in C and the subgraph of G induced by C is k-connected. Constant approximation algorithm is known for (3, m)-CDS in unit disk graph, which models homogeneous WSNs. In this paper, we present the first performance guaranteed approximation algorithm for (3, m)-CDS in a heterogeneous WSN. In fact, our performance ratio is valid for any topology. The performance ratio is at most γ, where γ = α + 8 + 2 ln(2α - 6) for α ≥ 4 and γ = 3α +2 ln 2 for α <; 4, and α is the performance ratio for the minimum (2, m)-CDS problem. Using currently best known value of α, the performance ratio is ln δ +o(ln δ), where δ is the maximum degree of the graph, which is asymptotically best possible in view of the non-approximability of the problem. Applying our algorithm on a unit disk graph, the performance ratio is less than 27, improving previous ratio 62.3 by a large amount for the (3, m)-CDS problem on a unit disk graph.

In a wireless sensor network, the virtual backbone plays an important role. Due to accidental damage or energy depletion, it is desirable that the virtual backbone is fault-tolerant. A fault-tolerant virtual backbone can be modeled as a k-connected m-fold dominating set ((k, m)-CDS for short). In this paper, we present a constant approximation algorithm for the minimum weight (k, m)-CDS problem in unit disk graphs under the assumption that k and m are two fixed constants with m ≥ k. Prior to this paper, constant approximation algorithms are known for k = 1 with weight and 2 ≤ k ≤ 3 without weight. Our result is the first constant approximation algorithm for the (k, m)-CDS problem with general k, m and with weight. The performance ratio is (α+5ρ) fork ≥ 3 and (α+2.5ρ) for k = 2, where α is the performance ratio for the minimum weight m-fold dominating set problem and ρ is the performance ratio for the subset k-connected subgraph problem (both problems are known to have constant performance ratios).