MC-MLAS: Multi-channel Minimum Latency Aggregation Scheduling in Wireless Sensor Networks

The problem of aggregation scheduling in wireless sensor networks is widely studied in order to minimize aggregation latency and prevent collisions. Many aggregation scheduling algorithms have been designed for time-critical applications. However, all of the existing work on aggregation scheduling suffers from packet losses due to the lossy links in wireless sensor networks. We observe that high data loss rates of over 90% often occur using existing scheduling algorithms when the link qualities are poor. This makes the aggregation scheduling algorithms impractical in real applications. This paper makes aggregation scheduling usable by proposing an opportunistic approach to improve the delivery rate by elaborately selecting opportunistic links for sensor nodes. Simulation results verify the efficiency of our approach. One of our methods can achieve delivery rates of close to 100% in various network conditions.

This paper focuses on the distributed data aggregation collision-free scheduling problem, which is one of very important issues in wireless sensor networks. Bo et al. (Proc. IEEE INFOCOM, 2009) proposed an approximate distributed algorithm for the problem and Xu et al. (Proc. ACM FOWANC, 2009) proposed a centralized algorithm and its distributed implementation to generate a collision-free scheduling for the problem, which are the only two existing distributed algorithms. Unfortunately, there are a few mistakes in their performance analysis in Bo et al. (Proc. IEEE INFOCOM, 2009), and the distributed algorithm can not get the same latency as the centralized algorithm because the distributed implementation was not an accurate implementation of the centralized algorithm (Xu et al. in Proc. ACM FOWANC, 2009). According to those, we propose an improved distributed algorithm to generate a collision-free schedule for data aggregation in wireless sensor networks. Not an arbitrary tree in Bo et al. (Proc. IEEE INFOCOM, 2009) but a breadth first search tree (BFS) rooted at the sink node is adopted, the bounded latency 61R+5Δ?67 of the schedule is obtained, where R is the radius of the network with respect to the sink node and Δ is the maximum node degree. We also correct the latency bound of the schedule in Bo et al. (Proc. IEEE INFOCOM, 2009) as 61D+5Δ?67, where D is a diameter of the network and prove that our algorithm is more efficient than the algorithm (Bo et al. in Proc. IEEE INFOCOM, 2009). We also give a latency bound for the distributed implementation in Xu et al. (Proc. ACM FOWANC, 2009).

Minimum-Latency Aggregation Scheduling (MLAS) is a problem of fundamental importance in wireless sensor networks. There however has been very little effort spent on designing algorithms to achieve sufficiently fast data aggregation under the physical interference model which is a more realistic model than traditional protocol interference model. In particular, a distributed solution to the problem under the physical interference model is challenging because of the need for global-scale information to compute the cumulative interference at any individual node. In this paper, we propose a distributed algorithm that solves the MLAS problem under the physical interference model in networks of arbitrary topology in O(K) time slots, where K is the logarithm of the ratio between the lengths of the longest and shortest links in the network. We also give a centralized algorithm to serve as a benchmark for comparison purposes, which aggregates data from all sources in O(log3n) time slots (where n is the total number of nodes). This is the current best algorithm for the problem in the literature. The distributed algorithm partitions the network into cells according to the value K, thus obviating the need for global information. The centralized algorithm strategically combines our aggregation tree construction algorithm with the non-linear power assignment strategy in [9]. We prove the correctness and efficiency of our algorithms, and conduct empirical studies under realistic settings to validate our analytical results.

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a very important research area. It has wide range of applications in different domains, such as industrial production processes and military fields. The sensing of events and forwarding of sensed information, through multi-hops wireless communications, toward the base-station is the main functionality of a WSN. In this paper, we study the problem of how gather and aggregate data from the whole sensor nodes to the base-station, with efficient way, such that the energy consumption is reduced, messages collision are prevented and the time latency is minimized. The problem of data aggregation scheduling is mathematically modeled, and then a heuristic to resolve the problem are proposed. The simulation results show the efficiency of our solution compared to the best approaches existed in literature.KeywordsSensorsWireless Sensor Networkdata aggregation schedulingHeuristicmathematical modeling

This paper proposes a reliable data aggregation scheduling that uses caching and re-transmission based on track topology. In the proposed scheme, a node detects packet losses by overhearing messages that includes error indications of the child nodes, from its neighbor nodes. If packet losses are detected, as a backup parent, the node retransmits the lost packet. A retransmission strategy is added into the adaptive timeout scheduling scheme, which adaptively configures both the timeout and the collection period according to the potential level of an event occurrence. The retransmission steps cause an additional delay and power consumption of the sensor nodes, but dramatically increase the data accuracy of the aggregation results. An extensive simulation under various workloads shows that the proposed scheme outperforms other schemes in terms of data accuracy and energy consumption.

Traditionally, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are deployed with a single sink. Due to the emergence of sophisticated applications, WSNs may require more than one sink, where many nodes forward data to many sinks. Moreover, deploying more than one sink may prolong the network lifetime and address fault tolerance issues. Several protocols have been proposed for WSNs with multiple sinks. However, they are either routing protocols or forward data from many nodes to one sink. In this paper, we propose data aggregation scheduling and energy-balancing algorithms for WSNs with multiple sinks that forward data from many nodes to many sinks. The algorithm first forms trees rooted at virtual sinks and then balances the number of children among nodes to balance energy consumption. Further, the algorithm assigns contiguous slots to sibling nodes to avoid unnecessary energy waste due to active-sleep transitions. We prove a number of theoretical results and the correctness of the algorithms. Simulation and testbed results show the correctness and performance of our algorithms.

With the emergence of high data rate sensor network applications, there is an increasing demand for high-performance query services in such networks. To meet this challenge, we present Dynamic Conflict-free Query Scheduling (DCQS), a novel scheduling technique for queries in wireless sensor networks. In contrast to earlier TDMA protocols designed for general-purpose networks and workloads, DCQS is specifically designed for query services supporting in-network data aggregation. DCQS has several important features. First, it optimizes the query performance and energy efficiency by exploiting the temporal properties and precedence constraints introduced by data aggregation. Second, it can efficiently adapt to dynamic workloads and rate changes without explicitly reconstructing the transmission schedule. Furthermore, we provide an analytical capacity bound for DCQS in terms of query completion rate. This bound enables DCQS to effectively handle overload through rate control. NS2 simulation results demonstrate that DCQS significantly outperforms a representative TDMA protocol (DRAND) and the 802.11 protocol in terms of query latency, throughput and energy efficiency.

Wireless Sensor Networks is dispersed by a group composed of sensors and Base Stations. It can be used in various applications of remote monitoring system. Sensor nodes route the collected data to the Base Station via multi-hop wireless links. These sensors typically use batteries to operate, the battery cannot be replaced when the depletion of energy resources. Therefore, how to use energy-saving sensor networks to extend the overall working time efficiently is an important subject. Our research is based on A Power Control Mechanism based on Sleep Scheduling for Wireless Sensor Networks. We proposed a refined mechanism of routing protocol for wireless sensor networks with sleep scheduling. In wireless sensor network with sleep scheduling, active node adjusts its working time and each step in sleeping state earlier. In the multi-hop transmission mode, each node broadcasts the packet to confirm the receiving node. Therefore, we use routing information to reduce the number of broadcasting during transmission. When route node with low rest power cannot transfer, in order to remain completed route, we can execute interrupt handler procedure to reduce the package loss. Finally, to achieve power efficiency, we will simulate if the proposed algorithm can reduce energy consumption effectively in the data transmission procedure.

The emerging energy-harvesting technology enables charging sensor batteries with renewable energy sources, which has been effectively integrated into Wireless Sensor Networks (EH-WSNs). Due to the limited energy-harvesting capacities of tiny sensors, the captured energy remains scarce and differs greatly among nodes, which makes the data aggregation scheduling problem more challenging than that in energy-abundant WSNs. In this article, we investigate the Minimum Latency Aggregation Scheduling (MLAS) problem in EH-WSNs. First, we identify a new kind of collision in EH-WSNs, named as energy-collision, and design several special structures to avoid it during data aggregation. To reduce the latency, we try to choose the parent adaptively according to nodes’ transmission tasks and energy-harvesting ability, under the consideration of collisions avoidance. By considering transmitting time, residual energy, and energy-collision, three scheduling algorithms are proposed under protocol interference model. Under physical interference model, several approximate algorithms are also designed by taking account of the interference from the nodes several hops away. Finally, the theoretical analysis and simulation results verify that the proposed algorithms have high performance in terms of latency.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of a large number of small and low cost sensor nodes powered by small batteries and equipped with various sensing devices. Usually, for many applications, once a WSN is deployed, probably in an inhospitable terrain, it is expected to gather the required data for quite some time, say for years. Since each sensor node has limited energy, these nodes are usually put to sleep to conserve energy, and this helps to prolong the network lifetime. There are two major approaches to sleep scheduling of sensor nodes, viz. (i) random (ii) synchronized. Any sleep scheduling scheme has to ensure that data can always be routed from source to sink. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for sleep scheduling of sensor nodes using a tree and an energy aware routing protocol which is integrated with the proposed sleep scheduling scheme. The tree is rooted at the sink node. The internal nodes of the tree remain awake and the leaf nodes are made to sleep. This provides an assured path from any node to the sink node. The tree is periodically reconstructed considering the remaining energy of each node with a view to balance energy consumption of nodes, and remove any failed nodes from the tree. The proposed approach also considerably reduces average energy consumption rate of each node as we are able to put more number of nodes to sleep in comparison to other approaches. Additional fault-tolerance is provided by keeping two paths from each node towards the sink. Extensive simulation studies of the proposed routing protocol has been carried out using Castalia simulator, and its performance has been compared with that of a routing protocol, called GSP, which incorporates sleep scheduling using random approach. The simulation results show that the proposed approach has longer network lifetime in comparison to that provided by GSP, and the energy consumption of nodes is also balanced.

Thanks to the recent advances in energy-harvesting devices, nodes equipped with such devices are produced and enable Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) to be energy self-sustainable. Such networks are named as Battery-Free WSNs (BF-WSNs). Data aggregation is an essential operation in WSNs, and the Minimum Latency Aggregation Scheduling (MLAS) problem which seeks a collision-free aggregation scheduling with the minimum latency has been well studied in Battery-Powered WSNs (BP-WSN). In BP-WSNs, latency is mainly caused by the time overhead in collision-avoiding. However, the time-consumption for node recharging is the main cause of latency in BF-WSNs. Moreover, the collisions are time-independent while the recharge rate is time-varying. Therefore, the previous algorithms are not suitable for BF-WSNs. In addition, if aggregating data from all nodes, the latency would be determined by the node with the lowest recharge rate. Thus, we propose to aggregate a subset of nodes which can meet the given coverage quality requirement. Meanwhile, the aggregation tree and scheduling strategy should be adaptive to the current energy condition. We formulate this problem and propose a distributed algorithm which can select nodes adaptively according to their energy condition and schedule these nodes to achieve the minimum latency, simultaneously. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first distributed algorithm to solve the MLAS problem with coverage guarantee in BF-WSNs. The simulation results verify that our algorithm can reduce aggregation latency effectively, especially in bad energy condition.

Node scheduling in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) plays a vital role in conserving energy and lengthening the lifetime of networks, which are considered as prime design challenges. In large-scaled WSNs, especially where sensor nodes are deployed randomly, 100 % coverage is not possible all the times. Additionally, several types of applications of WSNs do not require 100 % coverage. Following these facts, in this paper, we propose a coverage based node scheduling algorithm. The algorithm shows that by sacrificing a little amount of coverage, a huge amount of energy can be saved. This, in turns, helps to increase the lifetime of the network. We provide mathematical analysis, which verifies the correctness of the proposed algorithm. The proposed algorithm ensures balanced energy consumption over the sensor networks. Moreover, simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm almost doubles the lifetime of a wireless sensor network by sacrificing only 5–8 % of coverage.

We consider the problem of scheduling in wireless sensor networks for the purposes of aggregation convergecast. We observe that existing schemes adopt essentially a two phase approach, consisting of, first, a tree construction and, second, a scheduling phase. Following a similar approach, we propose two new improvements, one to each of the two phases. Starting with a new lower bound on the schedule length, we make use of it in the tree construction phase. The tree construction phase consists of solutions to instances of bipartite graph semi-matchings. The scheduling phase is a weight-based priority scheme that obeys dependency (tree) and interference constraints. Our extensive experiments show that, overall, our proposed solution not only outperforms all previously proposed solutions in terms of schedule length, but it also significantly extends the network's lifetime.

One of the main objectives of query processing in wireless sensor networks is to achieve high resource efficiency. In this paper, we focus on scheduling multiple queries which may have temporal and spatial overlapping in querying operations. Our purpose is to schedule the operations on the sensor nodes so as to save the total cost by maximizing the overlapping in time among the queries. We propose an algorithm, called RSQS, which allows the newly arrived query to best share the operations with existing queries. The simulation results showed that our proposed approach can be used to effectively reduce the amount of sensory data transmitted in the network. This leads to energy and bandwidth saving in wireless sensor network.

Scheduling sensor activities is an effective way to prolong the lifetime of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this paper, we explore the problem of wake-up scheduling in WSNs where sensors have different lifetime. A novel local wake-up scheduling (LWS) strategy is proposed to prolong the network lifetime with full coverage constraint. In the LWS strategy, sensors are divided into a first layer set and a successor set. The first layer set which satisfies the coverage constraint is activated at the beginning. Once an active sensor runs out of energy, some sensors in the successor set will be activated to satisfy the coverage constraint. Based on the LWS strategy, this paper presents an ant colony optimization based method, namely mc-ACO, to maximize the network lifetime. The mc-ACO is validated by performing simulations on WSNs with different characteristics. A recently published genetic algorithm based wake-up scheduling method and a greedy based method are used for comparison. Simulation results reveal that mc-ACO yields better performance than the two algorithms.