Wireless Link Diversity: Exploiting link dynamics/diversity and stable addressing in Wireless Sensor Networks

Instability of links and connectivity in low-power wireless sensor networks (WSNs) has so far been regarded as a difficult problem that existing routing algorithms try their utmost to avoid. Therefore, since the emergence of WSNs, research has mainly focused on link estimation and routing techniques which identify and utilize consistently high quality links for packet forwarding. Links of intermediate quality (PRR < 90%) are ignored to ensure routing stability and to attain high end-to-end reliability. Protocol studies have shown that these intermediate quality links are bursty, i.e., they frequently switch between stable and unstable periods of transmission for a limited number of consecutive packets.

In this project we are investigating the diverse behavior of low-power wireless links in the following directions: (1) Intermediate and bursty links can be used for packet forwarding during their stable periods without affecting the reliability and stability of existing routing protocols; (2) These links often achieve significantly better routing progress and routing throughput than the long-term links chosen by existing routing protocols.

Downloads (source code)



Publications

Exploiting the Burstiness of Intermediate Quality Wireless Links. International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks (IJDSN). April 2012.
Probabilistic Addressing in Wireless Networks. Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE Student Conference, Hamburg University of Technology, May 20 - May 21, 2010, Hamburg, Germany. May 2010.
Poster Abstract: Statistical Vector based Point-to-Point Routing in Wireless Networks. Proceedings of the 9th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN 2010), Apr 12 - Apr 16, 2010, Stockholm, Sweden. April 2010.
Bursty Traffic over Bursty Links. Proceeding of 7th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (Sensys 09), Berkley, California. November 2009.
Routing Over Bursty Wireless Links. Proceedings of the 8th GI/ITG KuVS Fachgespräch ‘‘Wireless Sensor Networks’’, Hamburg, Germany. September 2009.
Challenges in Short-term Wireless Link Quality Estimation. Proceedings of the 7th GI/ITG Workshop on Wireless Sensor Networks. July 2008.
Towards Short-Term Wireless Link Quality Estimation. Proceedings of Fifth Workshop on Embedded Networked Sensors (Hot EmNets'08), Jun 2 - Jun 3, 2008, Chalottesville, USA. June 2008.