Clustering is an important research topic for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) because clustering makes it possible to guarantee basic levels of system performance, such as throughput and delay, in the presence of both mobility and a large number of mobile terminals. A large variety of approaches for ad hoc clustering have been presented, whereby different approaches typically focus on different performance metrics. This article presents a comprehensive survey of recently proposed clustering algorithms, which we classify based on their objectives. This survey provides descriptions of the mechanisms, evaluations of their performance and cost, and discussions of advantages and disadvantages of each clustering scheme. With this article, readers can have a more thorough and delicate understanding of ad hoc clustering and the research trends in this area.

A survey of clustering schemes for mobile ad hoc networks

Wireless sensor networks are resource-constrained self-organizing systems that are often deployed in inaccessible and inhospitable environments in order to collect data about some outside world phenomenon. For most sensor network applications, point-to-point reliability is not the main objective; instead, reliable event-of-interest delivery to the server needs to be guaranteed (possibly with a certain probability). The nature of communication in sensor networks is unpredictable and failure-prone, even more so than in regular wireless ad hoc networks. Therefore, it is essential to provide fault tolerant techniques for distributed sensor applications. Many recent studies in this area take drastically different approaches to addressing the fault tolerance issue in routing, transport and/or application layers. In this paper, we summarize and compare existing fault tolerant techniques to support sensor applications. We also discuss several interesting open research directions.

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A Survey of Fault Management in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are becoming an increasingly important technology that will be used in a variety of applications such as environmental monitoring, infrastructure management, public safety, medical, home and office security, transportation, and military. WSNs will also play a key role in pervasive computing where computing devices and people are connected to the Internet. Until now, WSNs and their applications have been developed without considering a management solution. This is a critical problem since networks comprising tens of thousands of nodes are expected to be used in some of the applications above. This article proposes the MANNA management architecture for WSNs. In particular, it presents the functional, information, and physical management architectures that take into account specific characteristics of this type of network. Some of them are restrict physical resources such as energy and computing power, frequent reconfiguration and adaptation, and faults caused by nodes unavailable. The MANNA architecture considers three management dimensions: functional areas, management levels, and WSN functionalities. These dimensions are specified to the management of a WSN and are the basis for a list of management functions. The article also proposes WSN models to guide the management activities and the use of correlation in the WSN management. This is a first step into a largely unexplored research area.

MANNA: a management architecture for wireless sensor networks

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) refers to technologies with various applications. In order to provide the vision and goals of M2M, an M2M ecosystem with a service platform must be established by the key players in industrial domains so as to substantially reduce development costs and improve time to market of M2M devices and services. The service platform must be supported by M2M enabling technologies and standardization. In this paper, we present a survey of existing M2M service platforms and explore the various research issues and challenges involved in enabling an M2M service platform. We first classify M2M nodes according to their characteristics and required functions, and we then highlight the features of M2M traffic. With these in mind, we discuss the necessity of M2M platforms. By comparing and analyzing the existing approaches and solutions of M2M platforms, we identify the requirements and functionalities of the ideal M2M service platform. Based on these, we propose an M2M service platform (M2SP) architecture and its functionalities, and present the M2M ecosystem with this platform. Different application scenarios are given to illustrate the interaction between the components of the proposed platform. In addition, we discuss the issues and challenges of enabling technologies and standardization activities, and outline future research directions for the M2M network.

M2M Service Platforms: Survey, Issues, and Enabling Technologies

In this paper we present a scalable routing protocol for ad hoc networks. The protocol is based on a geographic location management strategy that keeps the overhead of routing packets relatively small. Nodes are assigned home regions and all nodes within a home region know the approximate location of the registered nodes. As nodes travel, they send location update messages to their home regions and this information is used to route data packets. In this paper, we derive theoretical performance results for the protocol and prove that the control packet overhead scales linearly with node speed and N3/2 with increasing number of nodes. These results indicate that our protocol is well suited to relatively large ad hoc networks where nodes travel at high speed. Finally, we use simulations to validate our analytical model.

Scalable routing protocol for ad hoc networks

We present a protocol for managing mobile wireless ad hoc networks. The protocol uses hierarchical clustering of nodes to reduce the number of messages exchanged between the manager and the agents (mobiles). Clustering also enables the network to keep track of mobiles as they roam. The ad hoc network management protocol (ANMP) is fully compatible with simple management protocol, version 3 (SNMPv3) and uses the same protocol data units (PDUs) for data collection. The protocol also implements sophisticated security mechanisms that can be fine-tuned to meet specific requirements. Finally, we have implemented the protocol along with a graphical user interface that allows a manager to change the view or specify management parameters on the fly.

Wenli Chen

Papers

ANMP: ad hoc network management protocol