Dependable Over-the-Air Programming

The complexity of software running on wireless sensor networks has increased over the years, and the need for an over-the-air (OTA) programming tool has become prominent. The requirements for the network traffic generated by a code update and the security issues that arise from it are atypical for wireless sensor networks, thus requiring innovative solutions. In this article, we provide an integrated protocol suite for a secure and efficient code image propagation in multi-hop wireless sensor networks consisting of three main parts: i)An efficient data structure including a program memory efficient T -time signature based on Merkle’s one time signature; ii) A transmission efficient authenticated pagewise packet encoding using rateless erasure codes with security measures against denial-of-service-attacks; iii)An adaptive multi-hop propagation strategy which uses techniques from fuzzy control to mitigate the hidden terminal problem. Weaving means from fuzzy control into the propagation scheme enables exploiting the benefits of rateless erasure codes by efficiently reducing channel congestion and, thus, packet collisions.