Building distributed sensor network applications using BIP

International audienceThe exponential increase in the demands for the deployment of large-scale sensor networks, makes the efficient development of functional applications necessary. Nevertheless, the existence of scarce resources and the derived application complexity, impose significant constraints and requires high design expertise. Consequently, the probability of discovering design errors, once the application is implemented, is considerably high. To address these issues, there is a need for the availability of early-stage validation, performance evaluation and rapid prototyping techniques at design time. In this paper we present a novel approach for the co-design of mixed software/hardware applications for distributed sensor network systems. This approach uses BIP, a formal framework facilitating modeling, analysis and implementation of real-time embedded, heterogeneous systems. Our approach is illustrated through the modeling and deployment of a Wireless Multimedia Sensor Network (WMSN) application. We emphasize on its merits, notably validation of functional and non-functional requirements through statistical model-checking and automatic code generation for sensor network platforms

Formal Verification of Synchronisation, Gossip and Environmental Effects for Wireless Sensor Networks

The Internet of Things (IoT) promises a revolution in the monitoring and control of a wide range of applications, from urban water supply networks and precision agriculture food production, to vehicle connectivity and healthcare monitoring. For applications in such critical areas, control software and protocols for IoT systems must be verified to be both robust and reliable. Two of the largest obstacles to robustness and reliability in IoT systems are effects on the hardware caused by environmental conditions, and the choice of parameters used by the protocol. In this paper we use probabilistic model checking to verify that a synchronisation and dissemination protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is correct with respect to its requirements, and is not adversely affected by the environment. We show how the protocol can be converted into a logical model and then analysed using the probabilistic model-checker, PRISM. Using this approach we prove under which circumstances the protocol is guaranteed to synchronise all nodes and disseminate new information to all nodes. We also examine the bounds on synchronisation as the environment changes the performance of the hardware clock, and investigate the scalability constraints of this approach

Formal verification of synchronisation, gossip and environmental effects for wireless sensor networks

The Internet of Things (IoT) promises a revolution in the monitoring and control of a wide range of applications, from urban water supply networks and precision agriculture food production, to vehicle connectivity and healthcare monitoring. For applications in such critical areas, control software and protocols for IoT systems must be verified to be both robust and reliable. Two of the largest obstacles to robustness and reliability in IoT systems are effects on the hardware caused by environmental conditions, and the choice of parameters used by the protocol. In this paper we use probabilistic model checking to verify that a synchronisation and dissemination protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is correct with respect to its requirements, and is not adversely affected by the environment. We show how the protocol can be converted into a logical model and then analysed using the probabilistic model-checker, PRISM. Using this approach we prove under which circumstances the protocol is guaranteed to synchronise all nodes and disseminate new information to all nodes. We also examine the bounds on synchronisation as the environment changes the performance of the hardware clock, and investigate the scalability constraints of this approach. © 2019 Universitatsbibliothek TU Berlin

Computing Nash Equilibrium in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks: A Simulation-Based Approach

This paper studies the problem of computing Nash equilibrium in wireless networks modeled by Weighted Timed Automata. Such formalism comes together with a logic that can be used to describe complex features such as timed energy constraints. Our contribution is a method for solving this problem using Statistical Model Checking. The method has been implemented in UPPAAL model checker and has been applied to the analysis of Aloha CSMA/CD and IEEE 802.15.4 CSMA/CA protocols.Comment: In Proceedings IWIGP 2012, arXiv:1202.422

A secure communication framework for wireless sensor networks

Today, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are no longer a nascent technology and future networks, especially Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) will integrate more sensor-based systems into a variety of application scenarios. Typical application areas include medical, environmental, military, and commercial enterprises. Providing security to this diverse set of sensor-based applications is necessary for the healthy operations of the overall system because untrusted entities may target the proper functioning of applications and disturb the critical decision-making processes by injecting false information into the network. One way to address this issue is to employ en-route-filtering-based solutions utilizing keys generated by either static or dynamic key management schemes in the WSN literature. However, current schemes are complicated for resource-constrained sensors as they utilize many keys and more importantly as they transmit many keying messages in the network, which increases the energy consumption of WSNs that are already severely limited in the technical capabilities and resources (i.e., power, computational capacities, and memory) available to them. Nonetheless, further improvements without too much overhead are still possible by sharing a dynamically created cryptic credential. Building upon this idea, the purpose of this thesis is to introduce an efficient and secure communication framework for WSNs. Specifically, three protocols are suggested as contributions using virtual energies and local times onboard the sensors as dynamic cryptic credentials: (1) Virtual Energy-Based Encryption and Keying (VEBEK); (2) TIme-Based DynamiC Keying and En-Route Filtering (TICK); (3) Secure Source-Based Loose Time Synchronization (SOBAS) for WSNs.Ph.D.Committee Chair: Copeland, John; Committee Co-Chair: Beyah, Raheem; Committee Member: Li, Geoffrey; Committee Member: Owen, Henry; Committee Member: Zegura, Ellen; Committee Member: Zhang, Fumi

Towards formal models and languages for verifiable Multi-Robot Systems

Incorrect operations of a Multi-Robot System (MRS) may not only lead to unsatisfactory results, but can also cause economic losses and threats to safety. These threats may not always be apparent, since they may arise as unforeseen consequences of the interactions between elements of the system. This call for tools and techniques that can help in providing guarantees about MRSs behaviour. We think that, whenever possible, these guarantees should be backed up by formal proofs to complement traditional approaches based on testing and simulation. We believe that tailored linguistic support to specify MRSs is a major step towards this goal. In particular, reducing the gap between typical features of an MRS and the level of abstraction of the linguistic primitives would simplify both the specification of these systems and the verification of their properties. In this work, we review different agent-oriented languages and their features; we then consider a selection of case studies of interest and implement them useing the surveyed languages. We also evaluate and compare effectiveness of the proposed solution, considering, in particular, easiness of expressing non-trivial behaviour.Comment: Changed formattin

Randomized and efficient time synchronization in dynamic wireless sensor networks: a gossip-consensus-based approach

This paper proposes novel randomized gossip-consensus-based sync (RGCS) algorithms to realize efficient time correction in dynamic wireless sensor networks (WSNs). First, the unreliable links are described by stochastic connections, reflecting the characteristic of changing connectivity gleaned from dynamicWSNs. Secondly, based on the mutual drift estimation, each pair of activated nodes fully adjusts clock rate and offset to achieve network-wide time synchronization by drawing upon the gossip consensus approach. The converge-to-max criterion is introduced to achieve a much faster convergence speed. The theoretical results on the probabilistic synchronization performance of the RGCS are presented. Thirdly, a Revised-RGCS is developed to counteract the negative impact of bounded delays, because the uncertain delays are always present in practice and would lead to a large deterioration of algorithm performances. Finally, extensive simulations are performed on the MATLAB and OMNeT++ platform for performance evaluation. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithms are not only efficient for synchronization issues required for dynamic topology changes but also give a better performance in term of converging speed, collision rate, and the robustness of resisting delay, and outperform other existing protocols