6,848 research outputs found
Markov Decision Processes with Applications in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of autonomous and resource-limited
devices. The devices cooperate to monitor one or more physical phenomena within
an area of interest. WSNs operate as stochastic systems because of randomness
in the monitored environments. For long service time and low maintenance cost,
WSNs require adaptive and robust methods to address data exchange, topology
formulation, resource and power optimization, sensing coverage and object
detection, and security challenges. In these problems, sensor nodes are to make
optimized decisions from a set of accessible strategies to achieve design
goals. This survey reviews numerous applications of the Markov decision process
(MDP) framework, a powerful decision-making tool to develop adaptive algorithms
and protocols for WSNs. Furthermore, various solution methods are discussed and
compared to serve as a guide for using MDPs in WSNs
Towards a Queueing-Based Framework for In-Network Function Computation
We seek to develop network algorithms for function computation in sensor
networks. Specifically, we want dynamic joint aggregation, routing, and
scheduling algorithms that have analytically provable performance benefits due
to in-network computation as compared to simple data forwarding. To this end,
we define a class of functions, the Fully-Multiplexible functions, which
includes several functions such as parity, MAX, and k th -order statistics. For
such functions we exactly characterize the maximum achievable refresh rate of
the network in terms of an underlying graph primitive, the min-mincut. In
acyclic wireline networks, we show that the maximum refresh rate is achievable
by a simple algorithm that is dynamic, distributed, and only dependent on local
information. In the case of wireless networks, we provide a MaxWeight-like
algorithm with dynamic flow splitting, which is shown to be throughput-optimal
Wireless industrial monitoring and control networks: the journey so far and the road ahead
While traditional wired communication technologies have played a crucial role in industrial monitoring and control networks over the past few decades, they are increasingly proving to be inadequate to meet the highly dynamic and stringent demands of today’s industrial applications, primarily due to the very rigid nature of wired infrastructures. Wireless technology, however, through its increased pervasiveness, has the potential to revolutionize the industry, not only by mitigating the problems faced by wired solutions, but also by introducing a completely new class of applications. While present day wireless technologies made some preliminary inroads in the monitoring domain, they still have severe limitations especially when real-time, reliable distributed control operations are concerned. This article provides the reader with an overview of existing wireless technologies commonly used in the monitoring and control industry. It highlights the pros and cons of each technology and assesses the degree to which each technology is able to meet the stringent demands of industrial monitoring and control networks. Additionally, it summarizes mechanisms proposed by academia, especially serving critical applications by addressing the real-time and reliability requirements of industrial process automation. The article also describes certain key research problems from the physical layer communication for sensor networks and the wireless networking perspective that have yet to be addressed to allow the successful use of wireless technologies in industrial monitoring and control networks
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Optimal coverage multi-path scheduling scheme with multiple mobile sinks for WSNs
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are usually formed with many tiny sensors which are randomly deployed within sensing field for target monitoring. These sensors can transmit their monitored data to the sink in a multi-hop communication manner. However, the ‘hot spots’ problem will be caused since nodes near sink will consume more energy during forwarding. Recently, mobile sink based technology provides an alternative solution for the long-distance communication and sensor nodes only need to use single hop communication to the mobile sink during data transmission. Even though it is difficult to consider many network metrics such as sensor position, residual energy and coverage rate etc., it is still very important to schedule a reasonable moving trajectory for the mobile sink. In this paper, a novel trajectory scheduling method based on coverage rate for multiple mobile sinks (TSCR-M) is presented especially for large-scale WSNs. An improved particle swarm optimization (PSO) combined with mutation operator is introduced to search the parking positions with optimal coverage rate. Then the genetic algorithm (GA) is adopted to schedule the moving trajectory for multiple mobile sinks. Extensive simulations are performed to validate the performance of our proposed method
Machine Learning in Wireless Sensor Networks: Algorithms, Strategies, and Applications
Wireless sensor networks monitor dynamic environments that change rapidly
over time. This dynamic behavior is either caused by external factors or
initiated by the system designers themselves. To adapt to such conditions,
sensor networks often adopt machine learning techniques to eliminate the need
for unnecessary redesign. Machine learning also inspires many practical
solutions that maximize resource utilization and prolong the lifespan of the
network. In this paper, we present an extensive literature review over the
period 2002-2013 of machine learning methods that were used to address common
issues in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The advantages and disadvantages of
each proposed algorithm are evaluated against the corresponding problem. We
also provide a comparative guide to aid WSN designers in developing suitable
machine learning solutions for their specific application challenges.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorial
Energy Sharing for Multiple Sensor Nodes with Finite Buffers
We consider the problem of finding optimal energy sharing policies that
maximize the network performance of a system comprising of multiple sensor
nodes and a single energy harvesting (EH) source. Sensor nodes periodically
sense the random field and generate data, which is stored in the corresponding
data queues. The EH source harnesses energy from ambient energy sources and the
generated energy is stored in an energy buffer. Sensor nodes receive energy for
data transmission from the EH source. The EH source has to efficiently share
the stored energy among the nodes in order to minimize the long-run average
delay in data transmission. We formulate the problem of energy sharing between
the nodes in the framework of average cost infinite-horizon Markov decision
processes (MDPs). We develop efficient energy sharing algorithms, namely
Q-learning algorithm with exploration mechanisms based on the -greedy
method as well as upper confidence bound (UCB). We extend these algorithms by
incorporating state and action space aggregation to tackle state-action space
explosion in the MDP. We also develop a cross entropy based method that
incorporates policy parameterization in order to find near optimal energy
sharing policies. Through simulations, we show that our algorithms yield energy
sharing policies that outperform the heuristic greedy method.Comment: 38 pages, 10 figure
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