Primus inter pares no more
Increasing the fault tolerance of wireless sensor networks
OPEN ACCESS
Loading...
Author / Producer
Date
2021-03-29
Publication Type
Master Thesis
ETH Bibliography
yes
Citations
Altmetric
OPEN ACCESS
Data
Rights / License
Abstract
Wireless sensor networks are prone to various types of failures, such as failing nodes, network partitions or lost messages. WSNs need methods for handling these failures for them to operate reliably. Popular techniques used by communication protocols for organizing themselves such as having a central leader might simplify coordination but also makes the communication more vulnerable to these failures. We therefore propose a new communication protocol designed to be resilient against node failures, network partitions and lost messages. All nodes are equal in the designed protocol, meaning that no node has any special role. We use a decentralized schedule update process to allow the nodes to dynamically reallocate resources. By leveraging common prior knowledge, we can generate a compatible communication schedule for every node despite incomplete information about the rest of the network. This allows the nodes to keep communicating even if the schedule update is impaired by failures. The nodes are also able to synchronize their clocks and to correct the drift of the local clock relative to the rest of the network without requiring a central reference clock. Using an implementation of our communication protocol running on a testbed, we show that across several network topologies, a data transmission is received by more than 97.5 % of all nodes on average. We also show that the nodes can to keep communicating reliably in the presence of artificially induces failures such as node failures or interference during the schedule update process.
Permanent link
Publication status
published
External links
Editor
Contributors
Book title
Journal / series
Volume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
ETH Zurich
Event
Edition / version
Methods
Software
Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
Organisational unit
03429 - Thiele, Lothar (emeritus) / Thiele, Lothar (emeritus)