Estimation and Improvements of the Fundamental QoS in Networks with Random Topologies

The computer communication paradigm is moving towards the ubiquitous computing and Internet of Things (IoT). Small autonomous wirelessly networked devices are becoming more and more present in monitoring and automation of every human interaction with the environment, as well as in collecting various other information from the physical world. Applications, such as remote health monitoring, intelligent homes, early fire, volcano, and earthquake detection, traffic congestion prevention etc., are already present and all share the similar networking philosophy. An additional challenging for the scientific and engineering world is the appropriateness of the alike networks which are to be deployed in the inaccessible regions. These scenarios are typical in environmental and habitat monitoring and in military surveillance. Due to the environmental conditions, these networks can often only be deployed in some quasi-random way. This makes the application design challenging in the sense of coverage, connectivity, network lifetime and data dissemination. For the densely deployed networks, the random geometric graphs are often used to model the networking topology. This paper surveys some of the most important approaches and possibilities in modeling and improvement of coverage and connectivity in randomly deployed networks, with an accent on using the mobility in improving the network functionality

Estimation and Improvements of the Fundamental QoS in Networks with Random Topologies

The computer communication paradigm is moving towards the ubiquitous computing and Internet of Things (IoT). Small autonomous wirelessly networked devices are becoming more and more present in monitoring and automation of every human interaction with the environment, as well as in collecting various other information from the physical world. Applications, such as remote health monitoring, intelligent homes, early fire, volcano, and earthquake detection, traffic congestion prevention etc., are already present and all share the similar networking philosophy. An additional challenging for the scientific and engineering world is the appropriateness of the alike networks which are to be deployed in the inaccessible regions. These scenarios are typical in environmental and habitat monitoring and in military surveillance. Due to the environmental conditions, these networks can often only be deployed in some quasi-random way. This makes the application design challenging in the sense of coverage, connectivity, network lifetime and data dissemination. For the densely deployed networks, the random geometric graphs are often used to model the networking topology. This paper surveys some of the most important approaches and possibilities in modeling and improvement of co verage and connectivity in randomly deployed networks, with an accent on using the mobility in improving the network functionality

Data Centric Storage Technologies: Analysis and Enhancement

This paper surveys the most relevant works of Data Centric Storage (DCS) for Wireless Sensor Networks. DCS is a research area that covers data dissemination and storage inside an ad-hoc sensor network. In addition, we present a Quadratic Adaptive Replication (QAR) scheme for DCS, which is a more adaptive multi-replication DCS system and outperforms previous proposals in the literature by reducing the overall network traffic that has a direct impact on energy consumption. Finally, we discuss the open research challenges for DCS

Mesh-based sensor relocation for coverage maintenance in mobile sensor networks

Sensor relocation protocols can be employed as fault tolerance approach to offset the coverage loss caused by node failures. We introduce a novel localized structure, information mesh, for publishing and retrieving node location information. Based on the structure, we propose a Mesh-based Sensor Relocation Protocol (MSRP) for mobile sensor networks. MSRP maintains a sensor network’s sensing coverage by replacing failed sensors with nearby redundant ones using near optimal time delay and balanced energy consumption. Simulation indicates that it guarantees closest node replacement with high probability (> 96%) and with considerably low message overhead. We show that MSRP is superior to the existing sensor relocation schemes for its localized message transmissions and optimal (constant) per node storage load

LOCALIZED MOVEMENT CONTROL CONNECTIVITY RESTORATION ALGORITHMS FOR WIRELESS SENSOR AND ACTOR NETWORKS

Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks (WSANs) are gaining an increased interest because of their suitability for mission-critical applications that require autonomous and intelligent interaction with the environment. Hazardous application environments such as forest fire monitoring, disaster management, search and rescue, homeland security, battlefield reconnaissance, etc. make actors susceptible to physical damage. Failure of a critical (i.e. cut-vertex) actor partitions the inter-actor network into disjointed segments while leaving a coverage hole. Maintaining inter-actor connectivity is extremely important in mission-critical applications of WSANs where actors have to quickly plan an optimal coordinated response to detected events. Some proactive approaches pursued in the literature deploy redundant nodes to provide fault tolerance; however, this necessitates a large actor count that leads to higher cost and becomes impractical. On the other hand, the harsh environment strictly prohibits an external intervention to replace a failed node. Meanwhile, reactive approaches might not be suitable for time-sensitive applications. The autonomous and unattended nature of WSANs necessitates a self-healing and agile recovery process that involves existing actors to mend the severed inter-actor connectivity by reconfiguring the topology. Moreover, though the possibility of simultaneous multiple actor failure is rare, it may be precipitated by a hostile environment and disastrous events. With only localized information, recovery from such failures is extremely challenging. Furthermore, some applications may impose application-level constraints while recovering from a node failure. In this dissertation, we address the challenging connectivity restoration problem while maintaining minimal network state information. We have exploited the controlled movement of existing (internal) actors to restore the lost connectivity while minimizing the impact on coverage. We have pursued distributed greedy heuristics. This dissertation presents four novel approaches for recovering from node failure. In the first approach, volunteer actors exploit their partially utilized transmission power and reposition themselves in such a way that the connectivity is restored. The second approach identifies critical actors in advance, designates them preferably as noncritical backup nodes that replace the failed primary if such contingency arises in the future. In the third approach, we design a distributed algorithm that recovers from a special case of multiple simultaneous failures. The fourth approach factors in application-level constraints on the mobility of actors while recovering from node failure and strives to minimize the impact of critical node failure on coverage and connectivity. The performance of proposed approaches is analyzed and validated through extensive simulations. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of proposed approaches that outperform the best contemporary schemes found in literature

Algorithms for task assignment in wireless networks of microcontroller sensor nodes and autonomous robots

U bežičnoj mreži senzora i robota, senzorski moduli vrše nadzor fizičkih veličina od značaja, a roboti imaju ulogu izvršilaca zadataka koji im se dodeljuju primenom odgovarajućeg algoritma. Nakon detekcije događaja od strane statičkih senzorskih čvorova i prosleđivanja informacija o događajima robotima, potrebno je dodeliti zadatke robotima na efikasan način. Dodela zadataka vrši se u skladu sa prirodom različitih scenarija koji se mogu javiti u praksi. U okviru disertacije razmatran je slučaj kada se konkurentno javlja više događaja kojima je potrebno dodeliti izvršioce. U pogledu energetske efikasnosti, u ovakvim sistemima kao ključni problemi javljaju se minimizacija ukupne dužine kretanja robota i optimizacija komunikacije u mreži. Od komunikacinih protokola za otkrivanje izvršilaca, u ovoj disertaciji predstavljena su poboljšanja postojećeg iMesh protokola i uveden je novi vCell protokol zasnovan na lokalizovanom formiranju ćelija Voronoi dijagrama. Takođe, upoređene su performanse novog protokola sa postojećim (pravougaoni kvorum i iMesh) u gustim mrežama, retkim mrežama i mrežama sa rupama u topologiji. Uz to, uvedeni su algoritmi za ažuriranje lokacije kojima mreža reaguje na kretanje robota. Rezultati simulacija pokazuju da vCell postiže efikasnost blizu 100% u nalaženju najbližeg robota u gustim mrežama. U retkim mrežama, efikasnost mu je do 40% bolja u odnosu na ostala rešenja. Kao glavni rezultat u disertaciji prikazani su novi algoritmi za dodelu robota kao izvršilaca zadataka događajima, čime su prevaziđni nedostaci više do sada poznatih rešenja ovog problema. Za zadati skup događaja i skup robota, svakom događaju dodeljen je po jedan robot koji je zadužen za obilazak lokacije događaja. Tokom pojedinačnih rundi, robotima je dozvoljen obilazak jednog događaja kada se vrši uparivanje, ili više događaja, kada se vrši sekvencijalna dodela. U distribuiranom slučaju, statički senzorski uređaji detektuju događaje i prijavljuju ih obližnjim robotima. Algoritam PDM koji se odnosi na unapređeno uparivanje sa mogućnošću razmene partnera, eliminiše dugačke ivice koje se mogu javiti prilikom uparivanja. Algoritam SQD za sekvencijalnu dodelu događaja robotima iterativno pronalazi par robot-događaj sa najmanjim međusobnim rastojanjem, uvrštava izabrani događaj u listu za oblazak izabranog robota i ažurira poziciju robota. Takođe su predložene generalizacije koje omogućavaju da događaji budu posećeni od strane više robota i koje uzimaju u obzir vremenska ograničenja. Distribuirani algoritam MAD, koji je zasnovan na iMesh informacionoj strukturi i lokalnim aukcijama u robotskoj mreži, vrši dodelu robota događajima na lokalizovan i energetski efikasan način. Rezultati simulacija potvrđuju prednosti predloženih algoritama u odnosu na postojeća rešenja, kako u pogledu skraćivanja dužina putanja robota, tako i u produženju životnog vremena sistema.In a typical wireless sensor and robot network, sensor nodes monitor physical values of interest, while robots perform some automated tasks. The tasks are assigned to robots by means of an appropriate algorithm. Upon the occurrence of events which are detected by sensor nodes, the information about the events needs to be delivered to robots. Afterwards, it is necessary to assign tasks to robots in an efficient way. Task assignment is performed according to the nature of different scenarios which might occur in practice. This thesis is focused on the case when multiple events, all of which require to be visited by robots, happen simultaneously. Regarding energy efficiency, the key issues which arise in such systems are minimization of robot travel paths, and optimization of the network traffic. In this thesis, the following service discovery protocols are presented: improvements of the existing iMesh protocol, and the novel vCell protocol, which is based on localized formation of an information structure which resembles Voronoi diagram. Furthermore, the performaces of new vCell protocol is compared with the existing protocols (Quorum and iMesh) in dense networks, sparse networks, and networks with holes in topology. Also, location update algorithms are introduced, which deal with robot mobility. The simulations show that vCell achieves nearly 100% success rate in finding the nearest robot in dense networks. In sparse networks, it outperforms the other existing solutions by up to 40%. As a key contributtion, the novel dispatch lgorithms have been introduced. Given a set of events and a set of robots, the dispatch problem is to allocate one robot for each event to visit it. In a single round, each robot may be allowed to visit only one event (matching dispatch), or several events in a sequence (sequence dispatch). In a distributed setting, each event is discovered by a sensor and reported to a robot. In this thesis, novel algorithms are presented, whichh are aimed at overcoming the shortcomings of several existing solutions. Pairwise distance based matching algorithm (PDM) eliminates long edges by pairwise exchanges between matching pairs. Sequence dispatch algorithm (SQD) iteratively finds the closest event-robot pair, includes the event in dispatch schedule of the selected robot and updates its position accordingly. When event-robot distances are multiplied by robot resistance (inverse of the remaining energy), the corresponding energybalanced variants are obtained. Also, generalizations are introduced which handle multiple visits and timing constraints. Distributed algorithm MAD is based on information mesh infrastructure and local auctions within the robot network for obtaining the optimal dispatch schedule for each robot. The simulations conducted confirm the advantages of our algorithms over other existing solutions in terms of average robot-event distance and lifetime