An elementary proposition on the dynamic routing problem in wireless networks of sensors

The routing problem (finding an optimal route from one point in a computer network to another) is surrounded by impossibility results. These results are usually expressed as lower and upper bounds on the set of nodes (or the set of links) of a network and represent the complexity of a solution to the routing problem (a routing function). The routing problem dealt with here, in particular, is a dynamic one (it accounts for network dynamics) and concerns wireless networks of sensors. Sensors form wireless links of limited capacity and time-variable quality to route messages amongst themselves. It is desired that sensors self-organize ad hoc in order to successfully carry out a routing task, e.g. provide daily soil erosion reports for a monitored watershed, or provide immediate indications of an imminent volcanic eruption, in spite of network dynamics. Link dynamics are the first barrier to finding an optimal route between a node x and a node y in a sensor network. The uncertainty of the outcome (the best next hop) of a routing function lies partially with the quality fluctuations of wireless links. Take, for example, a static network. It is known that, given the set of nodes and their link weights (or costs), a node can compute optimal routes by running, say, Dijkstra's algorithm. Link dynamics however suggest that costs are not static. Hence, sensors need a metric (a measurable quantity of uncertainty) to monitor for fluctuations, either improvements or degradations of quality or load; when a fluctuation is sufficiently large (say, by Delta), sensors ought to update their costs and seek another route. Therein lies the other fundamental barrier to find an optimal route - complexity. A crude argument would suggest that sensors (and their links) have an upper bound on the number of messages they can transmit, receive and store due to resource constraints. Such messages can be application traffic, in which case it is desirable, or control traffic, in which case it should be kept minimal. The first type of traffic is demand, and a user should provision for it accordingly. The second type of traffic is overhead, and it is necessary if a routing system (or scheme) is to ensure its fidelity to the application requirements (policy). It is possible for a routing scheme to approximate optimal routes (by Delta) by reducing its message and/or memory complexity. The common denominator of the routing problem and the desire to minimize overhead while approximating optimal routes is Delta, the deviation (or stretch) of a computed route from an optimal one, as computed by a node that has instantaneous knowledge of the set of all nodes and their interaction costs (an oracle). This dissertation deals with both problems in unison. To do so, it needs to translate the policy space (the user objectives) into a metric space (routing objectives). It does so by means of a cost function that normalizes metrics into a number of hops. Then it proceeds to devise, design, and implement a scheme that computes minimum-hop-count routes with manageable complexity. The theory presented is founded on (well-ordered) sets with respect to an elementary proposition, that a route from a source x to a destination y can be computed either by y sending an advertisement to the set of all nodes, or by x sending a query to the set of all nodes; henceforth the proactive method (of y) and the reactive method (of x), respectively. The debate between proactive and reactive routing protocols appears in many instances of the routing problem (e.g. routing in mobile networks, routing in delay-tolerant networks, compact routing), and it is focussed on whether nodes should know a priori all routes and then select the best one (with the proactive method), or each node could simply search for a (hopefully best) route on demand (with the reactive method). The proactive method is stateful, as it requires the entire metric space - the set of nodes and their interaction costs - in memory (in a routing table). The routes computed by the proactive method are optimal and the lower and upper bounds of proactive schemes match those of an oracle. Any attempt to reduce the proactive overhead, e.g. by introducing hierarchies, will result in sub-optimal routes (of known stretch). The reactive method is stateless, as it requires no information whatsoever to compute a route. Reactive schemes - at least as they are presently understood - compute sub-optimal routes (and thus far, of unknown stretch). This dissertation attempts to answer the following question: "what is the least amount of state required to compute an optimal route from a source to a destination?" A hybrid routing scheme is used to investigate this question, one that uses the proactive method to compute routes to near destinations and the reactive method for distant destinations. It is shown that there are cases where hybrid schemes can converge to optimal routes, despite possessing incomplete routing state, and that the necessary and sufficient condition to compute optimal routes with local state alone is related neither to the size nor the density of a network; it is rather the circumference (the size of the largest cycle) of a network that matters. Counterexamples, where local state is insufficient, are discussed to derive the worst-case stretch. The theory is augmented with simulation results and a small experimental testbed to motivate the discussion on how policy space (user requirements) can translate into metric spaces and how different metrics affect performance. On the debate between proactive and reactive protocols, it is shown that the two classes are equivalent. The dissertation concludes with a discussion on the applicability of its results and poses some open problems

The Hybrid Algorithm for Data Collection over a Tree Topology in WSN

Wireless sensor networks have wide range of application such as analysis of traffic, monitoring of environmental, industrial process monitoring, technical systems, civilian and military application. Data collection is a basic function of wireless sensor networks (WSN) where sensor nodes determine attributes about a phenomenon of concern and transmits their readings to a common base station(sink node). In this paper, we use contention-free Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) support scheduling protocols for such data collection applications over tree-based routing topology. We represent a data gathering techniques to get the growing capacity, routing protocol all along with algorithms planned for remote wireless sensor networks. This paper describes about the model of sensor networks which has been made workable by the junction of micro-electro-mechanical systems technologies, digital electronics and wireless communications. Firstly the sensing tasks and the potential sensor network applications are explored, and assessment of factors influencing the design of sensor networks is provided. In our propose work using data compression and packet merging techniques; or taking advantage of the correlation in the sensor readings. Consider continuous monitoring applications where perfect aggregation is achievable, i.e., every node is capable of aggregate the entire packets expected from its children as well as that generate by itself into a particular packet before transmit in the direction of its sink node or base station or parent node. Keyword: Aggregation, Data Converge-cast, Data fusion, Energy Efficiency, Routing and TDMA

Aggregation Latency-Energy Tradeoff in Wireless Sensor Networks with Successive Inter- ference Cancellation

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EFFICIENT GREEDY-FACE-GREEDY GEOGRAPHIC ROUTING PROTOCOLS IN MOBILE AD HOC AND SENSOR NETWORKS

This thesis describes and develops two planarization algorithms for geographic routing and a geographic routing protocol for mobile ad hoc and sensor networks. As all nodes are mobile and there is no fixed infrastructure, the design of routing protocols is one of the most challenging issues in mobile ad hoc and sensor networks. In recent years, greedyface- greedy (GFG) geographic routing protocols have been widely used, which need nodes to construct planar graphs as the underlying graphs for face routing. Two kinds of planarization algorithms have been developed, idealized and realistic planarization algorithms, respectively. The idealized planarization algorithms make the ideal assumption that the original network graph is a unit-disk graph (UDG). On the other hand, the realistic planarization algorithms do not need the original network to be a UDG. We propose an idealized planarization algorithm, which constructs an Edge Constrained Localized Delaunay graph (ECLDel). Compared to the existing planarized localized Delaunay graph [42], the construction of an ECLDel graph is far simpler, which reduces the communication cost and saves the network bandwidth. We propose a Pre-Processed Cross Link Detection Protocol (PPCLDP), which generates a planar spanning subgraph of the original network graph in realistic environments with obstacles. The proposed PPCLDP outperforms the existing Cross Link Detection Protocol [32] with much lower communication cost and better convergence time. In GFG routing protocols, greedy routing may fail at concave nodes, in which case, face routing is applied to recover from the greedy routing failure. This may cause extra hops in routing in networks containing voids. We propose a Hill-Area-Restricted (HAR) routing protocol, which avoids the extra hops taken in the original GFG routing. Compared to the existing Node Elevation Ad hoc Routing [4], the proposed HAR guarantees the packet delivery and decreases the communication cost greatly

Design and analysis of distributed primitives for mobile ad hoc networks

This dissertation focuses on the design and analysis of distributed primitives for mobile ad hoc networks, in which mobile hosts are free to move arbitrarily. Arbitrary mobility adds unpredictability to the topology changes experienced by the network, which poses a serious challenge for the design and analysis of reliable protocols. In this work, three different approaches are used to handle mobility. The first part of the dissertation employs the simple technique of ignoring the mobility and showing a lower bound for the static case, which also holds in the mobile case. In particular, a lower bound on the worstcase running time of a previously known token circulation algorithm is proved. In the second part of the dissertation, a self-stabilizing mutual exclusion algorithm is proposed for mobile ad hoc networks, which is based on dynamic virtual rings formed by circulating tokens. The difficulties resulting from mobility are dealt with in the analysis by showing which properties hold for several kinds of mobile behavior; in particular, it is shown that mutual exclusion always holds and different levels of progress hold depending on how the mobility affects the token circulation. The third part of the dissertation presents two broadcasting protocols which propagate a message from a source node to all of the nodes in the network. Instead of relying on the frequently changing topology, the protocols depend on a less frequently changing and more stable characteristic â the distribution of mobile hosts. Constraints on distribution and mobility of mobile nodes are given which guarantee that all the nodes receive the broadcast data