In this paper, we present a family of adaptive protocols, called SPIN (Sensor Protocols for Information via Negotiation), that efficiently disseminates information among sensors in an energy-constrained wireless sensor network. Nodes running a SPIN communication protocol name their data using high-level data descriptors, called meta-data. They use meta-data negotiations to eliminate the transmission of redundant data throughout the network. In addition, SPIN nodes can base their communication decisions both upon application-specific knowledge of the data and upon knowledge of the resources that are available to them. This allows the sensors to efficiently distribute data given a limited energy supply. We simulate and analyze the performance of two specific SPIN protocols, comparing them to other possible approaches and a theoretically optimal protocol. We find that the SPIN protocols can deliver 60% more data for a given amount of energy than conventional approaches. We also find that, in terms of dissemination rate and energy usage, the SPlN protocols perform close to the theoretical optimum.

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Adaptive protocols for information dissemination in wireless sensor networks

In the Hamadryas baboon, males are substantially larger than females. A troop of baboons is subdivided into a number of ‘one-male groups’, consisting of one adult male and one or more females with their young. The male prevents any of ‘his’ females from moving too far from him. Kummer (1971) performed the following experiment. Two males, A and B, previously unknown to each other, were placed in a large enclosure. Male A was free to move about the enclosure, but male B was shut in a small cage, from which he could observe A but not interfere. A female, unknown to both males, was then placed in the enclosure. Within 20 minutes male A had persuaded the female to accept his ownership. Male B was then released into the open enclosure. Instead of challenging male A , B avoided any contact, accepting A’s ownership.

Evolution and the Theory of Games

Topology Control (TC) is one of the most important techniques used in wireless ad hoc and sensor networks to reduce energy consumption (which is essential to extend the network operational time) and radio interference (with a positive effect on the network traffic carrying capacity). The goal of this technique is to control the topology of the graph representing the communication links between network nodes with the purpose of maintaining some global graph property (e.g., connectivity), while reducing energy consumption and/or interference that are strictly related to the nodes' transmitting range. In this article, we state several problems related to topology control in wireless ad hoc and sensor networks, and we survey state-of-the-art solutions which have been proposed to tackle them. We also outline several directions for further research which we hope will motivate researchers to undertake additional studies in this field.

/pdf/topology-control-in-wireless-ad-hoc-and-sensor-networks-3e17u396zt.pdf

Topology Control in Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks

In this paper, we present a family of adaptive protocols, called SPIN (Sensor Protocols for Information via Negotiation), that efficiently disseminate information among sensors in an energy-constrained wireless sensor network. Nodes running a SPIN communication protocol name their data using high-level data descriptors, called meta-data. They use meta-data negotiations to eliminate the transmission of redundant data throughout the network. In addition, SPIN nodes can base their communication decisions both upon application-specific knowledge of the data and upon knowledge of the resources that are available to them. This allows the sensors to efficiently distribute data given a limited energy supply. We simulate and analyze the performance of four specific SPIN protocols: SPIN-PP and SPIN-EC, which are optimized for a point-to-point network, and SPIN-BC and SPIN-RL, which are optimized for a broadcast network. Comparing the SPIN protocols to other possible approaches, we find that the SPIN protocols can deliver 60% more data for a given amount of energy than conventional approaches in a point-to-point network and 80% more data for a given amount of energy in a broadcast network. We also find that, in terms of dissemination rate and energy usage, the SPIN protocols perform close to the theoretical optimum in both point-to-point and broadcast networks.

/pdf/negotiation-based-protocols-for-disseminating-information-in-1i6jhgr0p8.pdf

Negotiation-based protocols for disseminating information in wireless sensor networks

This self-contained introduction to the distributed control of robotic networks offers a distinctive blend of computer science and control theory. The book presents a broad set of tools for understanding coordination algorithms, determining their correctness, and assessing their complexity; and it analyzes various cooperative strategies for tasks such as consensus, rendezvous, connectivity maintenance, deployment, and boundary estimation. The unifying theme is a formal model for robotic networks that explicitly incorporates their communication, sensing, control, and processing capabilities--a model that in turn leads to a common formal language to describe and analyze coordination algorithms.Written for first- and second-year graduate students in control and robotics, the book will also be useful to researchers in control theory, robotics, distributed algorithms, and automata theory. The book provides explanations of the basic concepts and main results, as well as numerous examples and exercises.Self-contained exposition of graph-theoretic concepts, distributed algorithms, and complexity measures for processor networks with fixed interconnection topology and for robotic networks with position-dependent interconnection topology Detailed treatment of averaging and consensus algorithms interpreted as linear iterations on synchronous networks Introduction of geometric notions such as partitions, proximity graphs, and multicenter functions Detailed treatment of motion coordination algorithms for deployment, rendezvous, connectivity maintenance, and boundary estimation

/pdf/distributed-control-of-robotic-networks-a-mathematical-1q6nfcvi2l.pdf

Distributed Control of Robotic Networks: A Mathematical Approach to Motion Coordination Algorithms

We establish a classification of decision problems that are to be solved by mobile agents operating in unlabeled graphs, using a deterministic protocol. The classification is with respect to the ability of a team of agents to solve the problem, possibly with the aid of additional information. In particular, our focus is on studying differences between the decidability of a decision problem by agents and its verifiability when a certificate for a positive answer is provided to the agents. Our main result shows that there exists a natural complete problem for mobile agent verification. We also show that, for a single agent, three natural oracles yield a strictly increasing chain of relative decidability classes.

Decidability classes for mobile agents computing

We consider deterministic feasibility and time complexity of two fundamental tasks in distributed computing: consensus and mutual exclusion. Processes have different labels and communicate through a multiple access channel. The adversary wakes up some processes in possibly different rounds. In any round every awake process either listens or transmits. The message of a process i is heard by all other awake processes, if i is the only process to transmit in a given round. If more than one process transmits simultaneously, there is a collision and no message is heard. We consider three characteristics that may or may not exist in the channel: collision detection (listening processes can distinguish collision from silence), the availablity of a global clock showing the round number, and the knowledge of the number n of all processes.

If none of the above three characteristics is available in the channel, we prove that consensus and mutual exclusion are infeasible; if at least one of them is available, both tasks are feasible and we study their time complexity. Collision detection is shown to cause an exponential gap in complexity: if it is available, both tasks can be performed in time logarithmic in n, which is optimal, and without collision detection both tasks require linear time. We then investigate both consensus and mutual exclusion in the absence of collision detection, but under alternative presence of the two other features. With global clock, we give an algorithm whose time complexity linearly depends on n and on the wake-up time, and an algorithm whose complexity does not depend on the wakeup time and differs from the linear lower bound only by a factor O(log2 n). If n is known, we also show an algorithm whose complexity differs from the linear lower bound only by a factor O(log2 n).

Consensus and mutual exclusion in a multiple access channel

We consider broadcasting among n processors, f of which can be faulty. A fault-free processor, called the source, holds a piece of information which has to be transmitted to all other fault-free processors. We assume that the fraction f/n of faulty processors is bounded by a constant γ<1 . Transmissions are fault free. Faults are assumed to be of the crash type: faulty processors do not send or receive messages. We use the whispering model: pairs of processors communicating in one round must form a matching. A fault-free processor sending a message to another processor becomes aware of whether this processor is faulty or fault free and can adapt future transmissions accordingly. The main result of the paper is a broadcasting algorithm working in O( log n) rounds and using O(n) messages of logarithmic size, in the worst case. This is an improvement of the result from [17] where O ((log n)

 2
 
) rounds were used. Our method also gives the first algorithm for adaptive distributed fault diagnosis in O( log n) rounds.

Optimal adaptive broadcasting with a bounded fraction of faulty nodes

Two mobile agents with range of vision 1 start at arbitrary points in the plane and have to accomplish the task of approach, which consists in getting at distance at most one from each other, i.e., in getting within each other's range of vision. An adversary chooses the initial positions of the agents, their possibly different starting times, and assigns a different positive integer label and a possibly different speed to each of them. Each agent is equipped with a compass showing the cardinal directions, with a measure of length and a clock. Each agent knows its label and speed but not those of the other agent and it does not know the initial position of the other agent relative to its own. Agents do not have any global system of coordinates and they cannot communicate. Our main result is a deterministic algorithm to accomplish the task of approach, working in time polynomial in the unknown initial distance between the agents, in the length of the smaller label and in the inverse of the larger speed. The distance travelled by each agent until approach is polynomial in the first two parameters and does not depend on the third. The problem of approach in the plane reduces to a network problem: that of rendezvous in an infinite grid.

Andrzej Pelc

Papers

Decidability classes for mobile agents computing

Consensus and mutual exclusion in a multiple access channel

Optimal adaptive broadcasting with a bounded fraction of faulty nodes

Deterministic polynomial approach in the plane

Reliable Broadcasting in Logarithmic Time with Byzantine Link Failures