Bounding Communication Delay in Energy Harvesting Sensor Networks

In energy-harvesting sensor networks, limited ambient energy from environment necessitates sensor nodes to operate at a low-duty-cycle, i.e., they communicate briefly and stay asleep most of time. Such low-duty-cycle operation leads to orders of magnitude longer communication delays in comparison with traditional always-active networks, imposing a new challenge in many time-sensitive sensor network applications (e.g., tracking and alert). In this paper, we introduce novel solutions for bounding sink-to-node communications in energy-harvesting sensor networks. We first present an optimal solution for the sink-to-one case and its distributed implementation. For the sink-to-many case, we theoretically prove its NP-Hardness and in approximability property, followed by an efficient heuristic solution. We have evaluated our design with both extensive simulation and a TinyOS/Mote based implementation. Compared with an improved version of a state-of-the-art design, our delay maintenance design effectively provides E2E delay guarantees while consuming as much as 60% less energy.

[1]  Maria Grazia Scutellà,et al.  Dynamic shortest paths minimizing travel times and costs , 2001, Networks.

[2]  Peter I. Corke,et al.  Wireless adhoc sensor and actuator networks on the farm , 2006, International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Networks.

[3]  Anthony Rowe,et al.  Voice over Sensor Networks , 2006, 2006 27th IEEE International Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS'06).

[4]  Ting Zhu,et al.  ESC: Energy Synchronized Communication in sustainable sensor networks , 2009, 2009 17th IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols.

[5]  Feng Wang,et al.  Duty-Cycle-Aware Broadcast in Wireless Sensor Networks , 2009, IEEE INFOCOM 2009.

[6]  Xue Liu,et al.  Optimal Sampling Rate Assignment with Dynamic Route Selection for Real-Time Wireless Sensor Networks , 2008, 2008 Real-Time Systems Symposium.

[7]  Ling-Jyh Chen,et al.  XD: A Cross-Layer Designed Data Collection Mechanism for Mission-Critical WSNs in Urban Buildings , 2009, 2009 Tenth International Conference on Mobile Data Management: Systems, Services and Middleware.

[8]  Dharma P. Agrawal,et al.  Coverage and Lifetime Optimization of Wireless Sensor Networks with Gaussian Distribution , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.

[9]  Wei Hong,et al.  TinyDB: an acquisitional query processing system for sensor networks , 2005, TODS.

[10]  Shaojie Tang,et al.  RASPberry: A stable reader activation scheduling protocol in multi-reader RFID systems , 2009, 2009 17th IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols.

[11]  Gyula Simon,et al.  The flooding time synchronization protocol , 2004, SenSys '04.

[12]  Bhaskar Krishnamachari,et al.  Delay efficient sleep scheduling in wireless sensor networks , 2005, Proceedings IEEE 24th Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies..

[13]  Nitin H. Vaidya,et al.  A wakeup scheme for sensor networks: achieving balance between energy saving and end-to-end delay , 2004, Proceedings. RTAS 2004. 10th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium, 2004..

[14]  Pavan Sikka,et al.  Wireless ad hoc sensor and actuator networks on the farm , 2006, 2006 5th International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks.

[15]  Ting Zhu,et al.  Leakage-aware energy synchronization for wireless sensor networks , 2009, MobiSys '09.

[16]  Jiannong Cao,et al.  A location-free Prediction-based Sleep Scheduling protocol for object tracking in sensor networks , 2009, 2009 17th IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols.

[17]  Viktor K. Prasanna,et al.  Energy-latency tradeoffs for data gathering in wireless sensor networks , 2004, IEEE INFOCOM 2004.

[18]  Xiang-Yang Li,et al.  Energy Efficient TDMA Sleep Scheduling in Wireless Sensor Networks , 2009, IEEE INFOCOM 2009.

[19]  Tian He,et al.  Data forwarding in extremely low duty-cycle sensor networks with unreliable communication links , 2007, SenSys '07.

[20]  David E. Culler,et al.  Practical asynchronous neighbor discovery and rendezvous for mobile sensing applications , 2008, SenSys '08.

[21]  Sanjay Jha,et al.  A hybrid sensor network for cane-toad monitoring , 2005, SenSys '05.

[22]  Ning Xi,et al.  Pervasive surveillance using a cooperative mobile sensor network , 2006, Proceedings 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2006. ICRA 2006..

[23]  Shaojie Tang,et al.  Canopy closure estimates with GreenOrbs: sustainable sensing in the forest , 2009, SenSys '09.

[24]  Mohan Kumar,et al.  Distributed Independent Reinforcement Learning (DIRL) Approach to Resource Management in Wireless Sensor Networks , 2007, 2007 IEEE Internatonal Conference on Mobile Adhoc and Sensor Systems.

[25]  Marco Zuniga,et al.  Analyzing the transitional region in low power wireless links , 2004, 2004 First Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks, 2004. IEEE SECON 2004..

[26]  Andrew G. Barto,et al.  Adaptive Control of Duty Cycling in Energy-Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks , 2007, 2007 4th Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks.

[27]  Jinhua Zhu,et al.  PEER: a progressive energy efficient routing protocol for wireless ad hoc networks , 2005, Proceedings IEEE 24th Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies..

[28]  Gang Zhou,et al.  Impact of radio irregularity on wireless sensor networks , 2004, MobiSys '04.

[29]  Kay Römer.  Discovery of Frequent Distributed Event Patterns in Sensor Networks , 2008, EWSN.

[30]  Shudong Jin,et al.  Scalable and Robust Aggregation Techniques for Extracting Statistical Information in Sensor Networks , 2006, 26th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS'06).

[31]  Mani B. Srivastava,et al.  Power management in energy harvesting sensor networks , 2007, TECS.

[32]  Tarek F. Abdelzaher,et al.  Towards optimal sleep scheduling in sensor networks for rare-event detection , 2005, IPSN 2005. Fourth International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Networks, 2005..

[33]  Thomas F. La Porta,et al.  Bidding Protocols for Deploying Mobile Sensors , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.

[34]  Ahmed Helmy,et al.  Efficient geographic routing over lossy links in wireless sensor networks , 2008, TOSN.

[35]  Prasant Mohapatra,et al.  Virtual patrol: a new power conservation design for surveillance using sensor networks , 2005, IPSN 2005. Fourth International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Networks, 2005..

[36]  Jinhui Xu,et al.  Spatiotemporal Delay Control for Low-Duty-Cycle Sensor Networks , 2009, 2009 30th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium.

[37]  Habib M. Ammari,et al.  On the Connected k-Coverage Problem in Heterogeneous Sensor Nets: The Curse of Randomness and Heterogeneity , 2009, 2009 29th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems.

[38]  Pedro José Marrón,et al.  Meeting lifetime goals with energy levels , 2007, SenSys '07.

[39]  Mani B. Srivastava,et al.  Performance aware tasking for environmentally powered sensor networks , 2004, SIGMETRICS '04/Performance '04.

[40]  Chang-Gun Lee,et al.  Time-parameterized sensing task model for real-time tracking , 2005, 26th IEEE International Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS'05).

[41]  Gaurav S. Sukhatme,et al.  Studying the feasibility of energy harvesting in a mobile sensor network , 2003, 2003 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.03CH37422).

[42]  David E. Culler,et al.  Versatile low power media access for wireless sensor networks , 2004, SenSys '04.

[43]  Andreas Savvides,et al.  A methodology for extracting temporal properties from sensor network data streams , 2009, MobiSys '09.

[44]  J.A. Ritcey,et al.  Probabilistic Detection of Mobile Targets in Heterogeneous Sensor Networks , 2007, 2007 6th International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Networks.

[45]  Hui Song,et al.  Routing in intermittently connected sensor networks , 2008, 2008 IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols.

[46]  Yi Pan,et al.  Delay-Bounded and Energy-Efficient Composite Event Monitoring in Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems.

[47]  Saleem N. Bhatti,et al.  Fast-Converging Distance Vector Routing for Wireless Mesh Networks , 2008, 2008 The 28th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems Workshops.

[48]  Themis Palpanas,et al.  Distributed Real-Time Detection and Tracking of Homogeneous Regions in Sensor Networks , 2006, 2006 27th IEEE International Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS'06).

[49]  Deborah Estrin,et al.  Suelo: human-assisted sensing for exploratory soil monitoring studies , 2009, SenSys '09.

[50]  Chang-Gun Lee,et al.  Probabilistic QoS guarantee in reliability and timeliness domains in wireless sensor networks , 2005, Proceedings IEEE 24th Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies..

[51]  S. Kim,et al.  Trio: enabling sustainable and scalable outdoor wireless sensor network deployments , 2006, 2006 5th International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks.