Tree-based channel assignment schemes for multi-channel wireless sensor networks

Many sensor node platforms used for establishing wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can support multiple radio channels for wireless communication. Therefore, rather than using a single radio channel for whole network, multiple channels can be utilized in a sensor network simultaneously to decrease overall network interference, which may help increase the aggregate network throughput and decrease packet collisions and delays. This method, however, requires appropriate schemes to be used for assigning channels to nodes for multi-channel communication in the network. Because data generated by sensor nodes are usually delivered to the sink node using routing trees, a tree-based channel assignment scheme is a natural approach for assigning channels in a WSN. We present two fast tree-based channel assignment schemes (called bottom up channel assignment and neighbor count-based channel assignment) for multi-channel WSNs. We also propose a new interference metric that is used by our algorithms in making decisions. We validated and evaluated our proposed schemes via extensive simulation experiments. Our simulation results show that our algorithms can decrease interference in a network, thereby increasing performance, and that our algorithms are good alternatives for static channel assignment in WSNs. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Tree-based channel assignment schemes for multi-channel wireless sensor networks

Ankara : The Department of Computer Engineering and the Graduate School of Engineering and Science of Bilkent University, 2012.Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 2012.Includes bibliographical references leaves 55-58.A lot of sensor node platforms used for establishing wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can support multiple radio channels for wireless communication. Therefore, rather than using a radio single channel and sharing it for the whole network, multiple channels can be utilized in a sensor network simultaneously to decrease the overall interference in the network, which may help increasing the aggregate throughout in the network and decrease packet collisions and delay. This requires, however, appropriate channel assignment schemes to be used for assigning channels to the nodes for multi-channel communication in the network. Since, data generated by sensor nodes are usually carried to one or more sinks in the network using routing trees, tree-based channel assignment schemes are a natural approach for assigning channels in a WSN. We present two fast tree-based channel assignment schemes (called BUCA and NCCA) for multi-channel WSNs. We also propose a new network interference metric that is used in our algorithms while making decisions. We evaluate our proposed schemes by extensive simulation experiments and compare them with another well-known tree-based protocol from the literature. The results show that our proposed algorithms can provide better performance, up to 40% performance increase in some cases, compared to the other method. We also discuss in which cases the performance improvement can be achieved.Terzi, ÇağlarM.S

Rapid Convergecast on Commodity Hardware: Performance Limits and Optimal Policies

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Multi-Channel Scheduling for Fast Convergecast in Wireless Sensor Networks

We explore the following fundamental question - how fast can information be collected from a wireless sensor network? We consider a number of design parameters such as, power control, time and frequency scheduling, and routing. There are essentially two factors that hinder efficient data collection - interference and the half-duplex single-transceiver radios. We show that while power control helps in reducing the number of transmission slots to complete a convergecast under a single frequency channel, scheduling transmissions on different frequency channels is more efficient in mitigating the effects of interference (empirically, 6 channels suffice for most 100-node networks). With these observations, we define a receiver-based channel assignment problem, and prove it to be NP-complete on general graphs. We then introduce a greedy channel assignment algorithm that efficiently eliminates interference, and compare its performance with other existing schemes via simulations. Once the interference is completely eliminated, we show that with half-duplex single-transceiver radios the achievable schedule length is lower-bounded by max(2nk − 1,N), where nk is the maximum number of nodes on any subtree and N is the number of nodes in the network. We modify an existing distributed time slot assignment algorithm to achieve this bound when a suitable balanced routing scheme is employed. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrate that convergecast can be completed within up to 50% less time slots, in 100-node networks, using multiple channels as compared to that with single-channel communication. Finally, we also demonstrate further improvements that are possible when the sink is equipped with multiple transceivers or when there are multiple sinks to collect data

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