EC8702 AD HOC AND WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS L T P C

3 0 0 3
OBJECTIVES:
The student should be made to:
 Learn Ad hoc network and Sensor Network fundamentals
 Understand the different routing protocols
 Have an in-depth knowledge on sensor network architecture and design issues
 Understand the transport layer and security issues possible in Ad hoc and Sensor networks
 Have an exposure to mote programming platforms and tool
UNIT I AD HOC NETWORKS – INTRODUCTION AND ROUTING 9
PROTOCOLS
Elements of Ad hoc Wireless Networks, Issues in Ad hoc wireless networks, Example commercial
applications of Ad hoc networking, Ad hoc wireless Internet, Issues in Designing a Routing Protocol for
Ad Hoc Wireless Networks, Classifications of Routing Protocols, Table Driven Routing Protocols -
Destination Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV), On–Demand Routing protocols –Ad hoc On–Demand
Distance Vector Routing (AODV).

UNIT II SENSOR NETWORKS – INTRODUCTION & ARCHITECTURES 9

Challenges for Wireless Sensor Networks, Enabling Technologies for Wireless Sensor Networks, WSN
application examples, Single-Node Architecture - Hardware Components, Energy Consumption of
Sensor Nodes, Network Architecture - Sensor Network Scenarios, Transceiver Design Considerations,
Optimization Goals and Figures of Merit.
UNIT III WSN NETWORKING CONCEPTS AND PROTOCOLS 9
MAC Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks, Low Duty Cycle Protocols And Wakeup Concepts - S-
MAC, The Mediation Device Protocol, Contention based protocols - PAMAS, Schedule based protocols
– LEACH, IEEE 802.15.4 MAC protocol, Routing Protocols- Energy Efficient Routing, Challenges and
Issues in Transport layer protocol.
UNIT IV SENSOR NETWORK SECURITY 9
Network Security Requirements, Issues and Challenges in Security Provisioning, Network Security
Attacks, Layer wise attacks in wireless sensor networks, possible solutions for jamming, tampering, black
hole attack, flooding attack. Key Distribution and Management, Secure Routing – SPINS, reliability
requirements in sensor networks.
UNIT V SENSOR NETWORK PLATFORMS AND TOOLS 9
Sensor Node Hardware – Berkeley Motes, Programming Challenges, Node-level software platforms –
TinyOS, nesC, CONTIKIOS, Node-level Simulators – NS2 and its extension to sensor networks, COOJA,
TOSSIM, Programming beyond individual nodes – State centric programming.

TOTAL:45 PERIODS
OUTCOMES:
At the end of the course, the student would be able to:
 Know the basics of Ad hoc networks and Wireless Sensor Networks
 Apply this knowledge to identify the suitable routing algorithm based on the network and
user requirement
 Apply the knowledge to identify appropriate physical and MAC layer protocols
 Understand the transport layer and security issues possible in Ad hoc and sensor
networks.
 Be familiar with the OS used in Wireless Sensor Networks and build basic modules

TEXT BOOKS:
1. C. Siva Ram Murthy and B. S. Manoj, ―Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Architectures and Protocols‖,
Prentice Hall, PTR, 2004. (UNIT I)
2. Holger Karl , Andreas willig, ―Protocol and Architecture for Wireless Sensor Networks‖, John wiley
publication, Jan 2006.(UNIT II-V)
References
1. Feng Zhao, Leonidas Guibas, ―Wireless Sensor Networks: an information processing
approach‖, Elsevier publication, 2004.
2. Charles E. Perkins, ―Ad Hoc Networking‖, Addison Wesley, 2000.
3. I.F. Akyildiz, W. Su, Sankarasubramaniam, E. Cayirci, ―Wireless sensor networks: a
survey‖, computer networks, Elsevier, 2002, 394 - 422.
 EC8702 - AD HOC AND WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS

UNIT I
AD HOC NETWORKS – INTRODUCTION AND ROUTING PROTOCOLS
Elements of Ad hoc Wireless Networks, Issues in Ad hoc wireless networks,
Example commercial applications of Ad hoc networking, Ad hoc wireless
Internet, Issues in Designing a Routing Protocol for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks,
Classifications of Routing Protocols, Table Driven Routing Protocols - Destination
Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV), On–Demand Routing protocols –Ad hoc On–
Demand Distance Vector Routing (AODV).
 Ad Hoc Wireless Network
Introduction
• Ad Hoc Network is a multi-hop relaying
network
• ALOHAnet developed in 1970
• Ethernet developed in 1980
• In 1994, Bluetooth proposed by Ericsson to
develop a short-range, low-power, low-
complexity, and inexpensive radio inteface
• WLAN 802.11 spec. is proposed in 1997
1
 Cellular and Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

• Cellular Wireless Networks: infrastructure

dependent network
• Ad Hoc Networks: multi-hop radio relaying
and without support of infrastructure
– Wireless Mesh Networks
– Wireless Sensor Networks
• The major differences between cellular
networks and ad hoc networks as summarized
in Table 5.1

2
 Wireless Mesh
Networks

Cellular Wireless Networks Hybrid Wireless

Networks
Wireless Sensor
Networks

Infrastructure Dependent Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

(Single-Hop Wireless Networks) (Multi-Hop Wireless Networks)

Figure 5.1. Cellular and ad hoc wireless networks.

3
 B
A

D
E

Switching Center
+
Gateway

Base Station Mobile Node Path from C to E

2009/11/2 4
5
Figure 5.2. A cellular networks.
 B
A

C
F

E D

Mobile Node Wireless Link Path from C to E

2009/11/2 5
6
Figure 5.3. An ad hoc wireless networks
 Table 5.1 Differences between cellular networks and ad hoc
wireless networks
Cellular Networks Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

Fixed infrastructure-based Infrastructure-less

Single-hop wireless links Multi-hop wireless links

Guaranteed bandwidth Shared radio channel

(designed for voice traffic) (more suitable for best-effort data traffic)

Centralized routing Distributed routing

Circuit-switched Packet-switched
(evolving toward packet switching) (evolving toward emulation of circuit
switching)
Seamless connectivity Frequency path break
(low call drops during handoffs) due to mobility
High cost and time of deployment Quick and cost-effective deployment

Reuse of frequency spectrum through Dynamic frequency reuse based on carrier

geographical channel reuse sense mechanism
6
2009/11/2 7
 Table 5.1 Differences between cellular networks and ad hoc
wireless networks (cont.)
Easier to achieve time synchronization Time synchronization is difficult and
consumes bandwidth
Easier to employ bandwidth reservation Bandwidth reservation requires complex
medium access control protocols
Application domains include mainly civilian Application domains include battlefields,
and commercial sector emergency search and rescue operation, and
collaborative computing
High cost of network maintenance Self-organization and maintenance properties
(backup power source, staffing, etc.) are built into the network

Mobile hosts are of relatively low complexity Mobile hosts require more intelligence
(should have a transceiver as well as
routing/switching capacity)
Major goals of routing and call admission are Man aim of routing is to find paths with
to maximize the call acceptance ratio and minimum overhead and also quick
minimize the call drop ratio reconfiguration of broken paths

Widely deployed and currently in the third Several issues are to be addressed for
generation successful commercial deployment even
though widespread use exists in defense
7
2009/11/2 8
 Applications of Ad Hoc Wireless Networks
• Military Applications
– Establishing communication among a group of soldiers for
tactical operations
– Coordination of military object moving at high speeds
such as fleets of airplanes or ships
– Requirements: reliability, efficiency, secure communication,
and multicasting routing,
• Collaborative and Distributed Computing
– Conference, distributed files sharing
• Emergency Operations
– Search, rescue, crowd control, and commando operations
– Support real-time and fault-tolerant communication paths
8
 Wireless Mesh Networks

• An alternate communication infrastructure for

mobile or fixed nodes/users
• Provides many alternate paths for a data
transfer session between a source and
destination
• Advantages of Wireless Mesh Networks
– High data rate, quick and low cost of deployment,
enhanced services, high scalability, easy
extendability, high availability, and low cost per bit

9
 Wired Network

Gateway node

Transmission range
A house with rooftop transceiver Wired link to the Internet
Wireless link

Figure 5.4. Wireless mesh networks operating in a residential zone

10
Internet

Radio relay node

Multi-hop radio relay link Lamp

Wired link to the Internet Coverage area

Figure 5.5 Wireless mesh network covering a highway

11
 Wireless Sensor Networks
• A collection of a large number of sensor nodes
that are deployed in a particular region
• Applications:
– military, health care, home security, and
environmental monitoring
• Differences with the ad hoc wireless networks:
– Mobility of nodes, size of network, density of
deployment, power constraints, data/information
fusion, traffic distribution

12
 Hybrid Wireless Networks
• HWN such as Multi-hop cellular networks and
integrated cellular ad hoc relay networks
– The base station maintains the information about the
topology of the network for efficient routing
– The capacity of a cellular network can be increased if the
network incorporates the properties of multi-hop relaying
along with the support of existing fixed infrastructure
• Advantages:
– Higher capacity than cellular networks due to better
channel reuse
– Increased flexibility and reliability in routing
– Better coverage and connectivity in holes
13
 B
A

E Switching Center
+
Gateway

Base Station Mobile Node MCN communication

Figure 5.6. MCN architecture.

14
 Issues in Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

• Medium access scheme

• Routing, Multicasting, TPC protocol
• Pricing scheme, QoS, Self-organization
• Security, Energy management
• Addressing and service discovery
• Deployment considerations

15
 Medium Access Scheme
• Distributed operation
– fully distributed involving minimum control overhead
• Synchronization
– Mandatory for TDMA-based systems
• Hidden terminals
– Can significantly reduce the throughput of a MAC protocol
• Exposed terminals
– To improve the efficiency of the MAC protocol, the exposed
nodes should be allowed to transmit in a controlled fashion
without causing collision to the on-going data transfer
• Access delay
16
 The Major Issues of MAC Scheme
• Throughput and access delay
– To minimize the occurrence of collision, maximize channel
utilization, and minimize controloverhead
• Fairness
– Equal share or weighted share of the bandwidth to all
competing nodes
• Real-time traffic support
• Resource reservation
– Such as BW, buffer space, and processing power
• Capability for power control
• Adaptive rate control
• Use of directional antennas
1
18
2009/11/2 7
 The Major Challenge of Routing Protocol

• Mobility result in frequent path break, packet

collision, and difficulty in resource reservation
• Bandwidth constraint: BW is shared by every node
• Error-prone and share channel: high bit error rate
• Location-dependent contention: distributing the
network load uniformly across the network
• Other resource constraint: computing power, battery
power, and buffer storage

18
The Major Requirement of Routing Protocol
• Minimum route acquisition delay
• Quick route reconfiguration: to handle path breaks
• Loop-free routing
• Distributed routing approach
• Minimum control overhead
• Scalability
• Provisioning of QoS:
• supporting differentiated classes of services
• Support for time-sensitive traffic
• Security and privacy
19
 The Major Issues in Multicast Routing
Protocols
• Robustness
– recover and reconfigure quickly from link breaks
• Efficiency
– minimum number of transmissions to deliver a data packet
to all the group members
• Minimal Control overhead
• QoS support
• Efficient group management
• Scalability
• Security
20
 Transport Layer Protocols

• Objectives: setting up and maintaining

– End-to-end connections, reliable end-to-end data
delivery, flow control, and congestion control
• Major performance degradation:
– Frequent path breaks, presence of old routing
information, high channel error rate, and frequent
network partitions

21
 Quality of Service Provisioning
• QoS often requires negotiation between the host and
the network, resource reservation schemes, priority
scheduling and call admission control
• QoS in Ad hoc wireless networks can be on a per
flow, per link, or per node
• Qos Parameters: different applications have different
requirements
– Multimedia: bandwidth and delay are the key parameters
– Military: BW, delay, security and reliability
– Emergency search –and-rescue: availability is the key
parameters, multiple link disjoint paths
– WSN: battery life, minimum energy consumption
22
 Quality of Service Provisioning
• QoS-aware routing:
– To have the routing use QoS parameters for finding a path
– The parameters are network through put, packet delivery
ratio, reliability, delay, delay jitter, packet lost rate, bit error
rate, and path loss
• QoS framework:
– A frame work for QoS is a complete system that attempts
to provide the promised service
– The QoS modules such as routing protocol, signaling
protocol, and resource management should react
promptly according to changes in the network state

23
 Self-Organization

• An important property that an ad hoc wireless

network should exhibit is organizing and maintaining
the network by itself
• Major activities: neighbor discovery, topology
organization, and topology reorganization
• Ad hoc wireless networks should be able to perform
self-organization quickly and efficiently

24
 Security
• The attack against ad hoc wireless networks are
classified into two types: passive and active attacks
• Passive attack: malicious nodes to observe the
nature of activities and to obtain information in the
network without disrupting the operation
• Active attack: disrupt the operation of the network
– Internal attack: nodes belong to the same network
– External attack: nodes outside the network

25
 Major Security Threats
• Denial of service: either consume the network BW or
overloading the system
• Resource consumption
– Energy depletion: by directing unnecessary traffic through
nodes
– Buffer overflow: filling unwanted data, routing table attack
(filling nonexistent destinations)
• Host impersonation: A compromised node can act as
another node and respond control packets to create
wrong route entries and terminate the traffic
• Information disclosure: support useful traffic pattern
• Interference: create wide-spectrum noise
26
 Addressing and Service Discovery

• An address that is globally unique is required for a

node to participate communication
– Auto-configuration of address is required to allocate non-
duplicate address to the nodes
– In networks frequent partitioning and merging of network
components require duplicate address detection
mechanisms
• Nodes in the network should be able to locate
services that other nodes provide

27
 Energy Management
• Transmission power management:
– RF hardware design ensure minimum power consumption
– Uses variable power MAC protocol
– Load balance in network layer
– Reducing the number of retransmissions at the transport
layer
– Application software developed for mobile computers

28
 Energy Management (cont.)

• Battery energy management: extending the battery

life by taking chemical properties, discharge patterns,
and by the selection of a battery from a set of
batteries that is available for redundancy
• Processor power management: CPU can be put into
different power saving modes during low processing
load conditions
• Devices power management: can be done by OS by
selectively powering down interface devices that are
not used or by putting devices into different power-
saving modes
29
 Scalability

• The latency of path-finding involved with an

on-demand routing protocol in a large ad hoc
wireless network may be unacceptably high
• A hierarchical topology-based system and
addressing may be more suitable for large ad
hoc wireless networks

30
 Deployment Considerations
• The deployment of a commercial ad hoc wireless
network has the following benefits
– Low cost of deployment
– Incremental deployment
– Short deployment time
– Re-configurability

31
 Major Issues for Deployment
• Scenario of deployment
– Military deployment
• Data-centric (e.g. WSN)
• User-centric (soldiers or vehicles carrying with wireless
communication devices)
– Emergency operations deployment
– Commercial wide-area deployment
– Home network deployment
• Required longevity of network: regenerative power
source can be deployed when the connectivityis
required for a longer duration of time
• Area of coverage 32
 Major Issues for Deployment

• Service availability: redundant nodes can be

deployed to against nodes failure
• Operational integration with other infrastructure:
can be considered for improve the performance or
gathering additional information, or for providing
better QoS
• Choice of protocols: the choices of protocols at
different layers of the protocol stack is to be done
taking into consideration the deployment scenario

33
 Ad Hoc Wireless in Internet
• Similar to wireless internet, the ad hoc
wireless internet extends the service of the
Internet to the end user over an ad hoc
wireless network
• Gateways: entry points to the wired Internet
• Address mobility: similar to the Mobile IP
• Routing: major problem in ad hoc wireless Internet
• Transport layer protocol
• Load balancing, pricing/billing, security, QoS
• Service, address, and location discovery
34
TCP/IP protocol stack TCP/IP protocol stack TCP/IP protocol stack
Application Layer Application Layer Application Layer
(HTTP, TELNET, SMTP, (HTTP, TELNET, SMTP, (HTTP, TELNET, SMTP,
etc.) etc.) etc.)
Transport Layer Transport Layer Transport Layer
(TCP/UDP) (TCP/UDP) (TCP/UDP)
Network Layer Network Layer Network Layer Network Layer
(IPv4/IPv6) (IPv4/IPv6) (IPv4/IPv6) (IPv4/IPv6)
802.11/HIPERLAN 802.11/HIPERLAN 802.3/802.4/802.5
802.11 802.3/802.4/80
HIPERLAN 2.5

Internet
Mobile node that Mobile node that can relay Ad hoc wireless Internet
can be connected packets to any mobile node gateway connected to a
to any AP running running ad hoc wireless subnet of the Internet
ad hoc wireless routing protocol
routing protocol
Multi-hop wireless part of ad hoc wireless Internet Traditional wired Internet

Flow of an IP packet from the wired Internet to a mobile node

Transceiver antenna
3
36
Figure 5.7. A schematic diagram of the ad hoc wireless Internet 5
 Internet
A

Gateway Node

A house with rooftop transceiver Transmission range

Path 1 Wired link to the Internet

Path 2 Wireless link

Figure 5.8. An illustration of the ad hoc wireless Internet implemented

by a wireless mesh network
36
Routing Protocols for Ad Hoc
Wireless Networks

■ 1
 Introduction
• Routing protocols used in wired networks cannot
be directly applied to ad hoc wireless networks
– Highly dynamic topology
– No infrastructure for centralized administration
– Bandwidth constrained
– Energy constrained
• For the above reasons, we need to design new
routing protocols for ad hoc networks

■ 2
 Issues in Designing a Routing Protocol
• Mobility:
– Ad hoc is highly dynamic due to the movement of nodes
– Node movement causes frequent path breaks
– The path repair in wired network has slow convergence
• Bandwidth Constraint:
– Wireless has less bandwidth due to the limited radio band:
Less data rate and difficult to maintain topology
information
– Frequent change of topology causes more overhead of
topology maintenance
– Target: Bandwidth optimization and design topology
update mechanism with less overhead
■ 3
 Issues in Designing a Routing Protocol
• Error-prone shared broadcast radio channel:
– Wireless links have time varying characteristics in terms
of link capacity and link-error probability
– Target: Interact with MAC layer to find better-quality link
– Hidden terminal problem causes packet collision
– Target: Find routes through better quality links and find
path with less congestion
• Hidden and exposed terminal problems
– RTS-CTS control packet cannot ensure collision free, see
Fig. 7.2
• Resource Constraints:
– Limited battery life and limited processing power
– Target: optimally manage these resources

■ 4
 T R A B
r

T RTS CTS Data

Distance

Collision
R RTS CTS Data RTS

A CTS Data RTS

B Data

Time

■
Figure 7.2. Hidden terminal problem with RTS-CTS-Data-ACK scheme. ■
5
5
Characteristics of an Ideal Routing Protocol
for Ad Hoc
• Fully distributed
• Adaptive to frequent topology changes
• Minimum connection setup time is desired
• Localized
– global maintenance involves a huge state propagation
control overhead
• Loop free and free from stale routes
• Packet collision must seldom happen

■ 6
Characteristics of an Ideal Routing Protocol
for Ad Hoc (cont.)
• Converge to optimal route quickly
• Optimally use scarce resource
– Bandwidth, computing power, memory, and battery
• Remote parts of the network must not cause updates
in the topology information maintained by this node
• Provide quality of service and support for time-
sensitive traffic

■ 7
 Classifications of Routing Protocols
• Routing protocol can be broadly classified into four
categories :
– Routing information update mechanism
– Use of temporal information for routing
– Routing topology
– Utilization of specific resource
• These classification is not mutually exclusive

■ 8
 Based on the Routing Information Update
Mechanism
• Proactive or table-driven routing protocols
– Maintain routing information in the routing table
– Routing information is flooded in the whole network
– Runs path-finding algorithm with the routing table
• Reactive or on-demand routing protocols
– Obtain the necessary path while required
• Hybrid routing protocols
– In the zone of given node : use table-driven
– Out of the zone of given node : use on-demand

■ 9
Based on the Use of Temporal Information
for Routing
• Using past temporal information
– Past status of the links or
– the status of links at the time of routing to make routing
decision
• Using future temporal information
– Expected future status of the links to make decision
– Node lifetime is also included
• Ex: remaining battery charge, prediction of location,
and link availability

■ 10
 Based on the Routing Topology

• Flat topology routing protocols

– Flat addressing scheme similar to IEEE 802.3 LANs
– Globally unique addressing mechanism for nodes
• Hierarchical topology routing protocols
– Logical hierarchy
– Associated addressing scheme
– May based on geographical information or hop distance

■ 11
Based on the Utilization of Specific Resource

• Power-aware routing
– Minimize consumption of resource
• Ex: Battery power
• Geographical information assisted routing
– Improve the routing performance
– Reduce control overhead

■ 12
Classifications of Routing Protocol:

(3) (1)

■ 13
• Table-Driven Routing Protocols
• On-Demand Routing Protocols

■ 14
 Table-Driven Routing Protocols

• We introduce these routing protocols:

– Destination Sequenced Distance-Vector Routing
Protocol (DSDV)
– Wireless Routing Protocol (WRP)
– Cluster-Head Gateway Switch Routing Protocol (CGSR)
– Source-Tree Adaptive Routing Protocol (STAR)

■ 15
 Destination Sequenced Distance-Vector
Routing Protocol (DSDV)
• Enhanced from distributed Bellman-Ford
algorithm
• Obtain a table that contains shortest path from
this node to every node
• Incorporate table updates with increasing
sequence number tags
– Prevent loops
– Counter the count-to-infinity problem
– Faster convergence

■ 16
 DSDV (Cont.)

• Exchange table between neighbors at regular time

interval
• Two types of table updates
– Incremental update
• Takes a single network data packet unit (NDPU)
– When no significant change in the local topology
– Full dumps update
• Takes multiple NDPUs:
– When local topology changes significantly
– Or incremental updates require more than a NDPU

■ 17
 DSDV (Cont.)

• Table updates are initiated by the destination with

the new sequence number which is always greater
than the previous one
• Single link break cause propagation of table update
information to the whole network
– With odd sequence
• The changed node informs neighbors about new
shortest path while receiving the table update
message
– With even sequence

■ 18
■ 19
 11 DestinationID

Node 15
Movement Dest NextNode Dist SeqNo

14 2 2 1 22
13
3 2 2 26

4 5 2 32
11 12
9 5 5 1 134
8 6 6 1 144

7 2 3 162
10
8 5 3 170

9 2 4 186
4 7
10 6 2 142
6 11 5 4 180
5
12 5 3 190
3
13 5 4 198
2 14 6 3 214
1
15 5 4 256

SourceID

Figure 7.6. Route maintenance in DSDV

■ 20
 DSDV (Cont.)
• Advantages:
– Route setup process is very fast
– Make the existing wired network protocol apply to ad
hoc network with fewer modifications
• Disadvantages:
– Excessive control overhead during high mobility
– Node must wait for a table update message initiated by
the destination node
• Cause stale routing information at nodes

■ 21
 On-demand Routing Protocol

• Unlike the table-driven routing protocols, on-

demand routing protocols execute the path-finding
process and exchange routing information only when
a path is required by a node to communicate with a
destination.

■ 22
 On-demand Routing Protocol

• Dynamic Source Routing Protocol (DSR)

• Ad Hoc On-demand Distance-Vector Routing Protocol
(AODV)
• Temporally Ordered Algorithm (TORA)
• Location-Aided Routing (LAR)
• Associativity-Based Routing(ABR)
• Signal Stability-Based Adaptive Routing Protocol (SSA)
• Flow-Oriented Routing Protocol (FORP)

■ 23
Dynamic Source Routing Protocol (DSR)

• Beacon-less: no hello packet

• Routing cache
• DSR contains two phases
– Route Discovery (find a path)
• Flooding RouteRequest with TTL from source
• Response RouteReply by destination
– If an forwarding node has a route to the destination in its
route cache, it sends a RouteREply to the source
– Route Maintenance (maintain a path)
• RouteError

■ 24
Routing Discovery
DestinationID

15

14
13

Network Link
11 12
9

8 RouteRequest

10
RouteReply

4 7
Path1: 1-2-3-7-9-13-15
6 Path2: 1-5-4-12-15
5
Path3: 1-6-10-11-14-15
3

2
1

Sour ceID
Figure 7.10. Route establishment in DSR. 2
36
■■

5
Routing Maintain DestinationID

15

14
13
Network Link

11 12
9
Selected Path
8

10 RouteError

4 7 Broken Link

6
5

2
1

SourceID

Figure 7.11. Route maintenance in DSR.

■ 26
 UNIT II
SENSOR NETWORKS – INTRODUCTION & ARCHITECTURES

Challenges for Wireless Sensor Networks, Enabling Technologies for

Wireless Sensor Networks, WSN application examples, Single-Node
Architecture - Hardware Components, Energy Consumption of Sensor
Nodes, Network Architecture - Sensor Network Scenarios, Transceiver
Design Considerations, Optimization Goals and Figures of Merit.
Unit -2 SENSOR NETWORKS –
INTRODUCTION & ARCHITECTURES

Ad hoc and Sensor Networks

Motivation & Applications
Goals of this chapter
• Give an understanding what ad hoc & sensor networks are
good for, what their intended application areas are
• Commonalities and differences
• Differences to related network types
• Limitations of these concepts

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 2

Outline
• Infrastructure for wireless?
• (Mobile) ad hoc networks
• Wireless sensor networks
• Comparison

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 3

Infrastructure-based wireless networks
• Typical wireless network: Based on infrastructure
• E.g., GSM, UMTS, …
• Base stations connected to a wired backbone network
• Mobile entities communicate wirelessly to these base stations
• Traffic between different mobile entities is relayed by base stations
and wired backbone
• Mobility is supported by switching from one base station to another
• Backbone infrastructure required for administrative tasks

Gateways IP backbone
s

Server
Router

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 4

Infrastructure-based wireless networks – Limits?
• What if …
• No infrastructure is available? – E.g., in disaster areas
• It is too expensive/inconvenient to set up? – E.g., in remote, large
construction sites
• There is no time to set it up? – E.g., in military operations

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 5

Possible applications for infrastructure-free networks
• Factory floor • Disaster recovery • Car-to-car
automation communication

• Military networking: Tanks, soldiers, …

• Finding out empty parking lots in a city, without asking a server
• Search-and-rescue in an avalanche
• Personal area networking (watch, glasses, PDA, medical appliance, …)
• …

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 6

Outline
• Infrastructure for wireless?
• (Mobile) ad hoc networks
• Wireless sensor networks
• Comparison

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 7

Solution: (Wireless) ad hoc networks
• Try to construct a network without infrastructure, using
networking abilities of the participants
• This is an ad hoc network – a network constructed “for a special
purpose”

• Simplest example: Laptops in a conference room –

a single-hop ad hoc network

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 8

Problems/challenges for ad hoc networks
• Without a central infrastructure, things become much more
difficult
• Problems are due to
• Lack of central entity for organization available
• Limited range of wireless communication
• Mobility of participants
• Battery-operated entities

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 9

No central entity ! self-organization
• Without a central entity (like a base station), participants
must organize themselves into a network (self-
organization)
• Pertains to (among others):
• Medium access control – no base station can assign transmission
resources, must be decided in a distributed fashion
• Finding a route from one participant to another

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 10

Limited range ! multi-hopping
• For many scenarios, communication with peers outside
immediate communication range is required
• Direct communication limited because of distance, obstacles, …
• Solution: multi-hop network

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 11

Mobility ! Suitable, adaptive protocols
• In many (not all!) ad hoc network applications, participants
move around
• In cellular network: simply hand over to another base station

• In mobile ad hoc
networks (MANET):
• Mobility changes
neighborhood relationship
• Must be compensated for
• E.g., routes in the network
have to be changed

• Complicated by scale
• Large number of such
nodes difficult to support
SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 12
Battery-operated devices ! energy-efficient operation
• Often (not always!), participants in an ad hoc network draw
energy from batteries
• Desirable: long run time for
• Individual devices
• Network as a whole
! Energy-efficient networking protocols
• E.g., use multi-hop routes with low energy consumption (energy/bit)
• E.g., take available battery capacity of devices into account
• How to resolve conflicts between different optimizations?

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 13

Outline
• Infrastructure for wireless?
• (Mobile) ad hoc networks
• Wireless sensor networks
• Applications
• Requirements & mechanisms
• Comparison

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 14

Wireless sensor networks
• Participants in the previous examples were devices close
to a human user, interacting with humans

• Alternative concept:
Instead of focusing interaction on humans, focus on
interacting with environment
• Network is embedded in environment
• Nodes in the network are equipped with sensing and actuation to
measure/influence environment
• Nodes process information and communicate it wirelessly

! Wireless sensor networks (WSN)

• Or: Wireless sensor & actuator networks (WSAN)

Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 15

WSN application examples
• Disaster relief operations
• Drop sensor nodes from an aircraft over a wildfire
• Each node measures temperature
• Derive a “temperature map”
• Biodiversity mapping
• Use sensor nodes to observe wildlife

• Intelligent buildings (or bridges)

• Reduce energy wastage by proper humidity,
ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) control
• Needs measurements about room occupancy,
temperature, air flow, …
• Monitor mechanical stress after earthquakes

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 16

WSN application scenarios
• Facility management
• Intrusion detection into industrial sites
• Control of leakages in chemical plants, …
• Machine surveillance and preventive maintenance
• Embed sensing/control functions into places no cable has gone
before
• E.g., tire pressure monitoring
• Precision agriculture
• Bring out fertilizer/pesticides/irrigation only where needed
• Medicine and health care
• Post-operative or intensive care
• Long-term surveillance of chronically ill patients or the elderly

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 17

WSN application scenarios
• Logistics
• Equip goods (parcels, containers) with a sensor node
• Track their whereabouts – total asset management
• Note: passive readout might suffice – compare RF IDs
• Telematics
• Provide better traffic control by obtaining finer-grained information
about traffic conditions
• Intelligent roadside
• Cars as the sensor nodes

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 18

Roles of participants in WSN
• Sources of data: Measure data, report them “somewhere”
• Typically equip with different kinds of actual sensors

• Sinks of data: Interested in receiving data from WSN

• May be part of the WSN or external entity, PDA, gateway, …

• Actuators: Control some device based on data, usually

also a sink

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 19

Structuring WSN application types
• Interaction patterns between sources and sinks classify
application types
• Event detection: Nodes locally detect events (maybe jointly with
nearby neighbors), report these events to interested sinks
• Event classification additional option
• Periodic measurement
• Function approximation: Use sensor network to approximate a
function of space and/or time (e.g., temperature map)
• Edge detection: Find edges (or other structures) in such a
function (e.g., where is the zero degree border line?)
• Tracking: Report (or at least, know) position of an observed
intruder (“pink elephant”)

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 20

Deployment options for WSN
• How are sensor nodes deployed in their environment?
• Dropped from aircraft ! Random deployment
• Usually uniform random distribution for nodes over finite area is
assumed
• Is that a likely proposition?
• Well planned, fixed ! Regular deployment
• E.g., in preventive maintenance or similar
• Not necessarily geometric structure, but that is often a convenient
assumption
• Mobile sensor nodes
• Can move to compensate for deployment shortcomings
• Can be passively moved around by some external force (wind, water)
• Can actively seek out “interesting” areas

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 21

Maintenance options
• Feasible and/or practical to maintain sensor nodes?
• E.g., to replace batteries?
• Or: unattended operation?
• Impossible but not relevant? Mission lifetime might be very small

• Energy supply?
• Limited from point of deployment?
• Some form of recharging, energy scavenging from environment?
• E.g., solar cells

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 22

Outline
• Infrastructure for wireless?
• (Mobile) ad hoc networks
• Wireless sensor networks
• Applications
• Requirements & mechanisms
• Comparison

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 23

Characteristic requirements for WSNs
• Type of service of WSN
• Not simply moving bits like another network
• Rather: provide answers (not just numbers)
• Issues like geographic scoping are natural requirements, absent from
other networks
• Quality of service
• Traditional QoS metrics do not apply
• Still, service of WSN must be “good”: Right answers at the right time
• Fault tolerance
• Be robust against node failure (running out of energy, physical destruction,
…)
• Lifetime
• The network should fulfill its task as long as possible – definition depends
on application
• Lifetime of individual nodes relatively unimportant
• But often treated equivalently

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 24

Characteristic requirements for WSNs
• Scalability
• Support large number of nodes
• Wide range of densities
• Vast or small number of nodes per unit area, very application-
dependent
• Programmability
• Re-programming of nodes in the field might be necessary, improve
flexibility
• Maintainability
• WSN has to adapt to changes, self-monitoring, adapt operation
• Incorporate possible additional resources, e.g., newly deployed
nodes

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 25

Required mechanisms to meet requirements
• Multi-hop wireless communication
• Energy-efficient operation
• Both for communication and computation, sensing, actuating
• Auto-configuration
• Manual configuration just not an option
• Collaboration & in-network processing
• Nodes in the network collaborate towards a joint goal
• Pre-processing data in network (as opposed to at the edge) can
greatly improve efficiency

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 26

Required mechanisms to meet requirements
• Data centric networking
• Focusing network design on data, not on node identifies (id-
centric networking)
• To improve efficiency
• Locality
• Do things locally (on node or among nearby neighbors) as far as
possible
• Exploit tradeoffs
• E.g., between invested energy and accuracy

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 27

Outline
• Infrastructure for wireless?
• (Mobile) ad hoc networks
• Wireless sensor networks
• Comparison

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 28

MANET vs. WSN
• Many commonalities: Self-organization, energy efficiency, (often)
wireless multi-hop
• Many differences
• Applications, equipment: MANETs more powerful (read: expensive)
equipment assumed, often “human in the loop”-type applications, higher
data rates, more resources
• Application-specific: WSNs depend much stronger on application
specifics; MANETs comparably uniform
• Environment interaction: core of WSN, absent in MANET
• Scale: WSN might be much larger (although contestable)
• Energy: WSN tighter requirements, maintenance issues
• Dependability/QoS: in WSN, individual node may be dispensable
(network matters), QoS different because of different applications
• Data centric vs. id-centric networking
• Mobility: different mobility patterns like (in WSN, sinks might be mobile,
usual nodes static)

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 29

Wireless fieldbuses and WSNs
• Fieldbus:
• Network type invented for real-time communication, e.g., for
factory-floor automation
• Inherent notion of sensing/measuring and controlling
• Wireless fieldbus: Real-time communication over wireless

! Big similarities

• Differences
• Scale – WSN often intended for larger scale
• Real-time – WSN usually not intended to provide (hard) real-time
guarantees as attempted by fieldbuses

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 30

Enabling technologies for WSN
• Cost reduction
• For wireless communication, simple microcontroller, sensing,
batteries
• Miniaturization
• Some applications demand small size
• “Smart dust” as the most extreme vision
• Energy scavenging
• Recharge batteries from ambient energy (light, vibration, …)

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 31

Conclusion
• MANETs and WSNs are challenging and promising system
concepts
• Many similarities, many differences
• Both require new types of architectures & protocols
compared to “traditional” wired/wireless networks
• In particular, application-specificness is a new issue

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 1: Motivation & Applications 32

Single node architecture
Goals of this chapter
• Survey the main components of the composition of a node
for a wireless sensor network
• Controller, radio modem, sensors, batteries
• Understand energy consumption aspects for these
components
• Putting into perspective different operational modes and what
different energy/power consumption means for protocol design

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 2

Outline
• Sensor node architecture
• Energy supply and consumption

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 3

Sensor node architecture
• Main components of a WSN node
• Controller
• Communication device(s)
• Sensors/actuators
• Memory
• Power supply

Memory

Communication Sensor(s)/
Controller
device actuator(s)

Power supply

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 4

Ad hoc node architecture
• Core: essentially the same
• But: Much more additional equipment
• Hard disk, display, keyboard, voice interface, camera, …

• Essentially: a laptop-class device

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 5

Controller
• Main options:
• Microcontroller – general purpose processor, optimized for
embedded applications, low power consumption
• DSPs – optimized for signal processing tasks, not suitable here
• FPGAs – may be good for testing
• ASICs – only when peak performance is needed, no flexibility

• Example microcontrollers
• Texas Instruments MSP430
• 16-bit RISC core, up to 4 MHz, versions with 2-10 kbytes RAM,
several DACs, RT clock, prices start at 0.49 US$
• Atmel ATMega
• 8-bit controller, larger memory than MSP430, slower

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 6

Communication device
• Which transmission medium?
• Electromagnetic at radio frequencies? ✓
• Electromagnetic, light?
• Ultrasound?

• Radio transceivers transmit a bit- or byte stream as radio

wave
• Receive it, convert it back into bit-/byte stream

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 7

Transceiver characteristics
• Capabilities • Radio performance
• Interface: bit, byte, packet level? • Modulation? (ASK, FSK, …?)
• Supported frequency range? • Noise figure? NF = SNRI/SNRO
• Typically, somewhere in 433 MHz • Gain? (signal amplification)
– 2.4 GHz, ISM band
• Receiver sensitivity? (minimum S to
• Multiple channels? achieve a given Eb/N0)
• Data rates? • Blocking performance (achieved
• Range? BER in presence of frequency-
offset interferer)
• Energy characteristics • Out of band emissions
• Power consumption to send/receive • Carrier sensing & RSSI
data? characteristics
• Time and energy consumption to • Frequency stability (e.g., towards
change between different states? temperature changes)
• Transmission power control? • Voltage range
• Power efficiency (which percentage
of consumed power is radiated?)

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 8

Transceiver states
• Transceivers can be put into different operational states,
typically:
• Transmit
• Receive
• Idle – ready to receive, but not doing so
• Some functions in hardware can be switched off, reducing energy
consumption a little
• Sleep – significant parts of the transceiver are switched off
• Not able to immediately receive something
• Recovery time and startup energy to leave sleep state can be
significant

• Research issue: Wakeup receivers – can be woken via

radio when in sleep state (seeming contradiction!)

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 9

Example radio transceivers
• Almost boundless variety available • Chipcon CC 2400
• Some examples • Implements 802.15.4
• 2.4 GHz, DSSS modem
• RFM TR1000 family
• 250 kbps
• 916 or 868 MHz
• Higher power consumption
• 400 kHz bandwidth
than above transceivers
• Up to 115,2 kbps
• Infineon TDA 525x family
• On/off keying or ASK
• E.g., 5250: 868 MHz
• Dynamically tuneable output
• ASK or FSK modulation
power
• RSSI, highly efficient power
• Maximum power about 1.4 mW
amplifier
• Low power consumption
• Intelligent power down,
• Chipcon CC1000 “self-polling” mechanism
• Range 300 to 1000 MHz, • Excellent blocking
programmable in 250 Hz steps performance
• FSK modulation
• Provides RSSI

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 10

Example radio transceivers for ad hoc networks
• Ad hoc networks: Usually, higher data rates are required
• Typical: IEEE 802.11 b/g/a is considered
• Up to 54 MBit/s
• Relatively long distance (100s of meters possible, typical 10s of
meters at higher data rates)
• Works reasonably well (but certainly not perfect) in mobile
environments
• Problem: expensive equipment, quite power hungry

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 11

Wakeup receivers
• Major energy problem: RECEIVING
• Idling and being ready to receive consumes considerable amounts
of power

• When to switch on a receiver is not clear

• Contention-based MAC protocols: Receiver is always on
• TDMA-based MAC protocols: Synchronization overhead, inflexible

• Desirable: Receiver that can (only) check for incoming

messages
• When signal detected, wake up main receiver for actual reception
• Ideally: Wakeup receiver can already process simple addresses
• Not clear whether they can be actually built, however

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 12

Ultra-wideband communication
• Standard radio transceivers: Modulate a signal onto a
carrier wave
• Requires relatively small amount of bandwidth
• Alternative approach: Use a large bandwidth, do not
modulate, simply emit a “burst” of power
• Forms almost rectangular pulses
• Pulses are very short
• Information is encoded in the presence/absence of pulses
• Requires tight time synchronization of receiver
• Relatively short range (typically)
• Advantages
• Pretty resilient to multi-path propagation
• Very good ranging capabilities
• Good wall penetration

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 13

Sensors as such
• Main categories
• Any energy radiated? Passive vs. active sensors
• Sense of direction? Omidirectional?

• Passive, omnidirectional
• Examples: light, thermometer, microphones, hygrometer, …
• Passive, narrow-beam
• Example: Camera
• Active sensors
• Example: Radar

• Important parameter: Area of coverage

• Which region is adequately covered by a given sensor?

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 14

Outline
• Sensor node architecture
• Energy supply and consumption

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 15

Energy supply of mobile/sensor nodes
• Goal: provide as much energy as possible at smallest
cost/volume/weight/recharge time/longevity
• In WSN, recharging may or may not be an option
• Options
• Primary batteries – not rechargeable
• Secondary batteries – rechargeable, only makes sense in
combination with some form of energy harvesting
• Requirements include
• Low self-discharge
• Long shelf live
• Capacity under load
• Efficient recharging at low current
• Good relaxation properties (seeming self-recharging)
• Voltage stability (to avoid DC-DC conversion)

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 16

Battery examples
• Energy per volume (Joule per cubic centimeter):

Primary batteries
Chemistry Zinc-air Lithium Alkaline
Energy (J/cm3) 3780 2880 1200
Secondary batteries
Chemistry Lithium NiMHd NiCd
Energy (J/cm3) 1080 860 650

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 17

Energy scavenging
• How to recharge a battery?
• A laptop: easy, plug into wall socket in the evening
• A sensor node? – Try to scavenge energy from environment
• Ambient energy sources
• Light ! solar cells – between 10 W/cm2 and 15 mW/cm2
• Temperature gradients – 80  W/cm2 @ 1 V from 5K difference
• Vibrations – between 0.1 and 10000  W/cm3
• Pressure variation (piezo-electric) – 330  W/cm2 from the heel of
a shoe
• Air/liquid flow
(MEMS gas turbines)

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 18

Energy scavenging – overview

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 19

Energy consumption
• A “back of the envelope” estimation

• Number of instructions
• Energy per instruction: 1 nJ
• Small battery (“smart dust”): 1 J = 1 Ws
• Corresponds: 109 instructions!

• Lifetime
• Or: Require a single day operational lifetime = 24¢60¢60 =86400 s
• 1 Ws / 86400s ¼ 11.5 W as max. sustained power consumption!

• Not feasible!

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 20

Multiple power consumption modes
• Way out: Do not run sensor node at full operation all the
time
• If nothing to do, switch to power safe mode
• Question: When to throttle down? How to wake up again?

• Typical modes
• Controller: Active, idle, sleep
• Radio mode: Turn on/off transmitter/receiver, both

• Multiple modes possible, “deeper” sleep modes

• Strongly depends on hardware
• TI MSP 430, e.g.: four different sleep modes
• Atmel ATMega: six different modes

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 21

Some energy consumption figures
• Microcontroller
• TI MSP 430 (@ 1 MHz, 3V):
• Fully operation 1.2 mW
• Deepest sleep mode 0.3 W – only woken up by external interrupts
(not even timer is running any more)
• Atmel ATMega
• Operational mode: 15 mW active, 6 mW idle
• Sleep mode: 75 W

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 22

Switching between modes
• Simplest idea: Greedily switch to lower mode whenever
possible
• Problem: Time and power consumption required to reach
higher modes not negligible
• Introduces overhead
• Switching only pays off if Esaved > Eoverhead
• Example: Esaved Eoverhead
Event-triggered
wake up from Pactive
sleep mode
• Scheduling problem Psleep
with uncertainty
(exercise) t1 tevent time
down up

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 23

 Alternative: Dynamic voltage scaling
• Switching modes complicated by uncertainty how long a
sleep time is available
• Alternative: Low supply voltage & clock
• Dynamic voltage scaling (DVS)
• Rationale:
• Power consumption P
depends on
• Clock frequency
• Square of supply voltage
• P / f V2
• Lower clock allows
lower supply voltage
• Easy to switch to higher clock
• But: execution takes longer
Memory power consumption
• Crucial part: FLASH memory
• Power for RAM almost negligible

• FLASH writing/erasing is expensive

• Example: FLASH on Mica motes
• Reading: ¼ 1.1 nAh per byte
• Writing: ¼ 83.3 nAh per byte

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 25

Transmitter power/energy consumption for n bits
• Amplifier power: Pamp = amp + amp Ptx
• Ptx radiated power
• amp, amp constants depending on model
• Highest efficiency ( = Ptx / Pamp ) at maximum output power
• In addition: transmitter electronics needs power PtxElec
• Time to transmit n bits: n / (R ¢ R )
code
• R nomial data rate, R coding rate
code
• To leave sleep mode
• Time Tstart, average power P
start

! Etx = T P + n / (R ¢ R ) (PtxElec + amp + amp Ptx)

start start code

• Simplification: Modulation not considered

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 26

Receiver power/energy consumption for n bits
• Receiver also has startup costs
• Time Tstart, average power P
start
• Time for n bits is the same n / (R ¢ R )
code
• Receiver electronics needs PrxElec
• Plus: energy to decode n bits EdecBits

! Erx = T P + n / (R ¢ R ) PrxElec + EdecBits ( R )

start start code

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 27

Some transceiver numbers

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 28

Comparison: GSM base station power consumption
Heat 602W Heat 1920W Heat 360W

• Overview
DC power RF power
AC power TRX TOC RF
3200W 480W
3802W 2400W 120W
PS -48V
TRXs ACE
84% Combining

Central Heat 800W

CE equipm.
BTS 800W Total Heat
3682W

AC Power Rack Com-

• Details
supply cabling
300W mon
220V -48V -48V
85% 99%
3802W 3232W 3200W Fans (No active cooling)
cooling
PAs consume 2400W 500W
dominant part of power
12 transceivers
(12*140W)/2400W=70%
200W
idle
140W 60W
Usable PA efficiency Converter

• (just to put things

40W/140W=28% 85%
-48V/+27V
119W Bias
Erlang
into perspective) Overall efficiency
(12*10W)/3802W=3.1%
efficiency 75%
DTX activity
9W Combiner Diplexer

TOC
47% 110W
PA 10W
15W
40W

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 29

Controlling transceivers
• Similar to controller, low duty cycle is necessary
• Easy to do for transmitter – similar problem to controller: when is it
worthwhile to switch off
• Difficult for receiver: Not only time when to wake up not known, it
also depends on remote partners
! Dependence between MAC protocols and power consumption is
strong!

• Only limited applicability of techniques analogue to DVS

• Dynamic Modulation Scaling (DSM): Switch to modulation best
suited to communication – depends on channel gain
• Dynamic Coding Scaling – vary coding rate according to channel
gain
• Combinations

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 2: Single node architecture 30

Unit 3 - Ad hoc and Sensor
Networks Medium access
control protocols
Goals of this chapter
 Controlling when to send a packet and when to listen for a
packet are perhaps the two most important operations in a
wireless network
 Especially, idly waiting wastes huge amounts of energy
 This chapter discusses schemes for this medium access
control that are
 Suitable to mobile and wireless networks
 Emphasize energy-efficient operation

Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 5: MAC protocols 2

Overview

 Principal options and difficulties

 Contention-based protocols
 Schedule-based protocols
 IEEE 802.15.4

3
Principal options and difficulties
 Medium access in wireless networks is difficult mainly
because of
 Impossible (or very difficult) to sende and receive at the same time
 Interference situation at receiver is what counts for transmission
success, but can be very different from what sender can observe
 High error rates (for signaling packets) compound the issues

 Requirement
 As usual: high throughput, low overhead, low error rates, …
 Additionally: energy-efficient, handle switched off devices!

4
Requirements for energy-efficient MAC protocols
 Recall
 Transmissions are costly
 Receiving about as expensive as transmitting
 Idling can be cheaper but is still expensive
 Energy problems
 Collisions – wasted effort when two packets collide
 Overhearing – waste effort in receiving a packet destined for
another node
 Idle listening – sitting idly and trying to receive when nobody is
sending
 Protocol overhead

 Always nice: Low complexity solution

5
 Main options

Wireless medium access

Centralized
Distributed

Schedule- Contention-
based based Schedule- Contention-
based based
Fixed Demand
assignment assignment Fixed Demand
assignment assignment

6
Centralized medium access
 Idea: Have a central station control when a node may
access the medium
 Example: Polling, centralized computation of TDMA schedules
 Advantage: Simple, quite efficient (e.g., no collisions), burdens the
central station

 Not directly feasible for non-trivial wireless network sizes

 But: Can be quite useful when network is somehow divided
into smaller groups
 Clusters, in each cluster medium access can be controlled
centrally – compare Bluetooth piconets, for example

! Usually, distributed medium access is considered

Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 5: MAC protocols 7

Schedule- vs. contention-based MACs
 Schedule-based MAC
 A schedule exists, regulating which participant may use which resource at
which time (TDMA component)
 Typical resource: frequency band in a given physical space (with a given
code, CDMA)
 Schedule can be fixed or computed on demand
 Usually: mixed – difference fixed/on demand is one of time scales
 Usually, collisions, overhearing, idle listening no issues
 Needed: time synchronization!
 Contention-based protocols
 Risk of colliding packets is deliberately taken
 Hope: coordination overhead can be saved, resulting in overall improved
efficiency
 Mechanisms to handle/reduce probability/impact of collisions required
 Usually, randomization used somehow

Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 5: MAC protocols 8

Overview

 Principal options and difficulties

 Contention-based protocols
 MACA
 S-MAC, T-MAC
 Preamble sampling, B-MAC
 PAMAS
 Schedule-based protocols
 IEEE 802.15.4

9
 Distributed, contention-based MAC
 Basic ideas for a distributed MAC
 ALOHA – no good in most cases
 Listen before talk (Carrier Sense Multiple Access, CSMA) –
better, but suffers from sender not knowing what is going on at
receiver, might destroy packets despite first listening for a
! Receiver additionally needs some possibility to inform
possible senders in its vicinity about impending
transmission (to “shut them up” for this duration)

Hidden
terminal Also:
scenario: recall
exposed
terminal
A B C D
scenario

SS 05 Ad hoc & sensor networs - Ch 5: MAC protocols 10

Main options to shut up senders
 Receiver informs potential interferers while a reception is
on-going
 By sending out a signal indicating just that
 Problem: Cannot use same channel on which actual reception
takes place
! Use separate channel for signaling
 Busy tone protocol
 Receiver informs potential interferers before a reception
is on-going
 Can use same channel
 Receiver itself needs to be informed, by sender, about impending
transmission
 Potential interferers need to be aware of such information, need
to store it
Receiver informs interferers before transmission – MACA
 Sender B asks receiver C
whether C is able to receive a
transmission
Request to Send (RTS)
 Receiver C agrees, sends out
a Clear to Send (CTS)
 Potential interferers overhear
either RTS or CTS and know
about impending transmission
and for how long it will last
 Store this information in a
Network Allocation Vector
 B sends, C acks
! MACA protocol (used e.g. in
IEEE 802.11)
RTS/CTS
 RTS/CTS ameliorate, but do not solve hidden/exposed
terminal problems
 Example problem cases:
MACA Problem: Idle listening
 Need to sense carrier for RTS or CTS packets
 In some form shared by many CSMA variants; but e.g. not by busy
tones
 Simple sleeping will break the protocol
 IEEE 802.11 solution: ATIM windows & sleeping
 Basic idea: Nodes that have data buffered for receivers send
traffic indicators at pre-arranged points in time
 Receivers need to wake up at these points, but can sleep
otherwise
 Parameters to adjust in MACA
 Random delays – how long to wait between listen/transmission
attempts?
 Number of RTS/CTS/ACK re-trials?
 …
Sensor-MAC (S-MAC)
 MACA’s idle listening is particularly unsuitable if average data rate is
low
 Most of the time, nothing happens
 Idea: Switch nodes off, ensure that neighboring nodes turn on
simultaneously to allow packet exchange (rendez-vous)
 Only in these active periods,
packet exchanges happen
 Need to also exchange
wakeup schedule between
neighbors
 When awake, essentially
perform RTS/CTS
 Use SYNCH, RTS, CTS
phases
S-MAC synchronized islands
 Nodes try to pick up schedule synchronization from
neighboring nodes
 If no neighbor found, nodes pick some schedule to start
with
 If additional nodes join, some node might learn about two
different schedules from different nodes
 “Synchronized islands”
 To bridge this gap, it has to follow both schemes
A A A A A A
B B B B B
E
E E E E E E
C
C C C C
D Time
SS 05 Ad D D5: MAC protocols
hoc & sensor networs - Ch D 16
Timeout-MAC (T-MAC)
 In S-MAC, active period is of
constant length A B C D
 What if no traffic actually
happens? CTS
 Nodes stay awake needlessly
long May not
 Idea: Prematurely go back to send
sleep mode when no traffic has
happened for a certain time
(=timeout) ! T-MAC
Timeout,
 Adaptive duty cycle!
go back to
 One ensuing problem: Early sleep as
sleeping nothing
 C wants to send to D, but is happened
hindered by transmission A! B
 Two solutions exist – homework!
Preamble Sampling
 So far: Periodic sleeping supported by some means to
synchronize wake up of nodes to ensure rendez-vous
between sender and receiver
 Alternative option: Don’t try to explicitly synchronize nodes
 Have receiver sleep and only periodically sample the channel
 Use long preambles to ensure that receiver stays awake
to catch actual packet
 Example: WiseMAC
Start transmission:
Long preamble Actual packet

Check Check Check Check

channel channel channel channel
Stay awake!
B-MAC
 Combines several of the above discussed ideas
 Takes care to provide practically relevant solutions

 Clear Channel Assessment

 Adapts to noise floor by sampling channel when it is assumed to
be free
 Samples are exponentially averaged, result used in gain control
 For actual assessment when sending a packet, look at five channel
samples – channel is free if even a single one of them is
significantly below noise
 Optional: random backoff if channel is found busy

 Optional: Immediate link layer acknowledgements for

received packets
B-MAC II
 Low Power Listening (= preamble sampling)
 Uses the clear channel assessment techniques to decide whether
there is a packet arriving when node wakes up
 Timeout puts node back to sleep if no packet arrived

 B-MAC does not have

 Synchronization
 RTS/CTS
 Results in simpler, leaner implementation
 Clean and simple interface

 Currently: Often considered as the default WSN MAC

protocol
 Power Aware Multiaccess with Signaling – PAMAS
 Idea: combine busy tone with RTS/CTS
 Results in detailed overhearing avoidance, does not address idle
listening
 Uses separate data and control channels
 Procedure
 Node A transmits RTS on control channel, does not sense channel
 Node B receives RTS, sends CTS on control channel if it can
receive and does not know about ongoing transmissions
 B sends busy tone as it starts to receive data
Control RTS CTS Busy tone
channel A!B B!A sent by B
Time
Data Data
channel A!B
 PAMAS – Already ongoing transmission
 Suppose a node C in vicinity of A is already receiving a
packet when A initiates RTS
? B
 Procedure C
 A sends RTS to B A
 C is sending busy tone (as it receives data)
 CTS and busy tone collide, A receives no CTS, does not send data

Similarly: Ongoing
Busy tone by C transmission near B
Control RTS CTS destroys RTS by
channel A!B B !A busy tone
Time
Data No data!
channel
Overview

 Principal options and difficulties

 Contention-based protocols
 Schedule-based protocols
 LEACH
 SMACS
 TRAMA
 IEEE 802.15.4
Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH)
 Given: dense network of nodes, reporting to a central sink,
each node can reach sink directly
 Idea: Group nodes into “clusters”, controlled by
clusterhead
 Setup phase; details: later
 About 5% of nodes become clusterhead (depends on scenario)
 Role of clusterhead is rotated to share the burden
 Clusterheads advertise themselves, ordinary nodes join CH with
strongest signal
 Clusterheads organize
 CDMA code for all member transmissions
 TDMA schedule to be used within a cluster
 In steady state operation
 CHs collect & aggregate data from all cluster members
 Report aggregated data to sink using CDMA
LEACH rounds
SMACS
 Given: many radio channels, superframes of known length
(not necessarily in phase, but still time synchronization
required!)
 Goal: set up directional links between neighboring nodes
 Link: radio channel + time slot at both sender and receiver
 Free of collisions at receiver
 Channel picked randomly, slot is searched greedily until a collision-
free slot is found
 Receivers sleep and only wake up in their assigned time
slots, once per superframe
 In effect: a local construction of a schedule
SMACS link setup
 Case 1: Node X, Y both so far unconnected
 Node X sends invitation message
 Node Y answers, telling X that is
unconnected to any other node
 Node X tells Y to pick slot/frequency for the
link
 Node Y sends back the link specification
 Case 2: X has some neighbors, Y not
 Node X will construct link specification and
instruct Y to use it (since Y is unattached)
 Case 3: X no neighbors, Y has some
 Y picks link specification
 Case 4: both nodes already have links
 Nodes exchange their schedules and pick Message exchanges
free slots/frequencies in mutual agreement protected by
randomized backoff
TRAMA
 Nodes are synchronized
 Time divided into cycles, divided into
 Random access periods
 Scheduled access periods
 Nodes exchange neighborhood information
 Learning about their two-hop neighborhood
 Using neighborhood exchange protocol: In random access
period, send small, incremental neighborhood update information
in randomly selected time slots
 Nodes exchange schedules
 Using schedule exchange protocol
 Similar to neighborhood exchange
 TRAMA – adaptive election
 Given: Each node knows its two-hop neighborhood and
their current schedules
 How to decide which slot (in scheduled access period) a
node can use?
 Use node identifier x and globally known hash function h
 For time slot t, compute priority p = h (x © t)
 Compute this priority for next k time slots for node itself and all two-
hop neighbors
 Node uses those time slots for which it has the highest priority

Priorities of t=0 t=1 t=2 t=3 t=4 t=5

node A and A 14 23 9 56 3 26
its two
B 33 64 8 12 44 6
neighbors B
&C C 53 18 6 33 57 2
TRAMA – possible conflicts
 When does a node have to receive?
 Easy case: one-hop neighbor has won a time slot and announced
a packet for it
 But complications exist – compare example
 What does B
believe?
 A thinks it can send
 B knows that D has
higher priority in its
2-hop
neighborhood!
 Rules for resolving
such conflicts are
part of TRAMA
Comparison: TRAMA, S-MAC
 Comparison between TRAMA & S-MAC
 Energy savings in TRAMA depend on load situation
 Energy savings in S-MAC depend on duty cycle
 TRAMA (as typical for a TDMA scheme) has higher delay but
higher maximum throughput than contention-based S-MAC

 TRAMA disadvantage: substantial memory/CPU

requirements for schedule computation
Overview

 Principal options and difficulties

 Contention-based protocols
 Schedule-based protocols
 IEEE 802.15.4
IEEE 802.15.4
 IEEE standard for low-rate WPAN applications
 Goals: low-to-medium bit rates, moderate delays without
too stringent guarantee requirements, low energy
consumption
 Physical layer
 20 kbps over 1 channel @ 868-868.6 MHz
 40 kbps over 10 channels @ 905 – 928 MHz
 250 kbps over 16 channels @ 2.4 GHz
 MAC protocol
 Single channel at any one time
 Combines contention-based and schedule-based schemes
 Asymmetric: nodes can assume different roles
IEEE 802.15.4 MAC overview
 Star networks: devices are associated with coordinators
 Forming a PAN, identified by a PAN identifier
 Coordinator
 Bookkeeping of devices, address assignment, generate beacons
 Talks to devices and peer coordinators
 Beacon-mode superframe structure
 GTS assigned to devices upon request
Wakeup radio MAC protocols
 Simplest scheme: Send a wakeup “burst”, waking up all
neighbors ! Significant overhearing
 Possible option: First send a short filter packet that includes the
actual destination address to allow nodes to power off quickly
 Not quite so simple scheme: Send a wakeup burst
including the receiver address
 Wakeup radio needs to support this option
 Additionally: Send information about a (randomly chosen)
data channel, CDMA code, … in the wakeup burst
 Various variations on these schemes in the literature,
various further problems
 One problem: 2-hop neighborhood on wakeup channel might be
different from 2-hop neighborhood on data channel
 Not trivial to guarantee unique addresses on both channels
Further protocols
 MAC protocols for ad hoc/sensor networks is one the most
active research fields
 Tons of additional protocols in the literature
 Examples: STEM, mediation device protocol, many CSMA variants
with different timing optimizations, protocols for multi-hop
reservations (QoS for MANET), protocols for multiple radio
channels, …
 Additional problems, e.g., reliable multicast

 This chapter has barely scratched the surface…

Summary
 Many different ideas exist for medium access control in
MANET/WSN
 Comparing their performance and suitability is difficult
 Especially: clearly identifying interdependencies between
MAC protocol and other layers/applications is difficult
 Which is the best MAC for which application?

 Nonetheless, certain “common use cases” exist

 IEEE 802.11 DCF for MANET
 IEEE 802.15.4 for some early “commerical” WSN variants
 B-MAC for WSN research not focusing on MAC
Ad hoc and Sensor Networks
: Routing protocols
Goals of this chapter
 In any network of diameter > 1, the routing & forwarding
problem appears
 We will discuss mechanisms for constructing routing tables
in ad hoc/sensor networks
 Specifically, when nodes are mobile
 Specifically, for broadcast/multicast requirements
 Specifically, with energy efficiency as an optimization metric
 Specifically, when node position is available
Overview

 Unicast routing in MANETs

 Energy efficiency & unicast routing
 Multi-/broadcast routing
 Geographical routing
Unicast, id-centric routing
 Given: a network/a graph
 Each node has a unique identifier (ID)
 Goal: Derive a mechanism that allows a packet sent from
an arbitrary node to arrive at some arbitrary destination
node
 The routing & forwarding problem
 Routing: Construct data structures (e.g., tables) that contain
information how a given destination can be reached
 Forwarding: Consult these data structures to forward a given
packet to its next hop
 Challenges
 Nodes may move around, neighborhood relations change
 Optimization metrics may be more complicated than “smallest hop
count” – e.g., energy efficiency
Ad-hoc routing protocols
 Because of challenges, standard routing approaches not
really applicable
 Too big an overhead, too slow in reacting to changes
 Examples: Dijkstra’s link state algorithm; Bellman-Ford distance
vector algorithm
 Simple solution: Flooding
 Does not need any information (routing tables) – simple
 Packets are usually delivered to destination
 But: overhead is prohibitive
! Usually not acceptable, either

! Need specific, ad hoc routing protocols

Ad hoc routing protocols – classification
 Main question to ask: When does the routing protocol
operate?

 Option 1: Routing protocol always tries to keep its routing

data up-to-date
 Protocol is proactive (active before tables are actually needed) or
table-driven

 Option 2: Route is only determined when actually needed

 Protocol operates on demand

 Option 3: Combine these behaviors

 Hybrid protocols
Ad hoc routing protocols – classification
 Is the network regarded as flat or hierarchical?
 Compare topology control, traditional routing

 Which data is used to identify nodes?

 An arbitrary identifier?
 The position of a node?
 Can be used to assist in geographic routing protocols because
choice of next hop neighbor can be computed based on destination
address
 Identifiers that are not arbitrary, but carry some structure?
 As in traditional routing
 Structure akin to position, on a logical level?
Proactive protocols
 Idea: Start from a +/- standard routing protocol, adapt it

 Adapted distance vector: Destination Sequence Distance

Vector (DSDV)
 Based on distributed Bellman Ford procedure
 Add aging information to route information propagated by distance
vector exchanges; helps to avoid routing loops
 Periodically send full route updates
 On topology change, send incremental route updates
 Unstable route updates are delayed
 … + some smaller changes
Proactive protocols – OLSR
 Combine link-state protocol & topology control
 Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR)

 Topology control component: Each node selects a minimal

dominating set for its two-hop neighborhood
 Called the multipoint relays
 Only these nodes are used for packet forwarding
 Allows for efficient flooding

 Link-state component: Essentially a standard link-state

algorithms on this reduced topology
 Observation: Key idea is to reduce flooding overhead (here by
modifying topology)
Proactive protocols – Combine LS & DS: Fish eye
 Fisheye State Routing (FSR) makes basic observation:
When destination is far away, details about path are not
relevant – only in vicinity are details required
 Look at the graph as if through a fisheye lens
 Regions of different accuracy of routing information

 Practically:
 Each node maintains topology table of network (as in LS)
 Unlike LS: only distribute link state updates locally
 More frequent routing updates for nodes with smaller scope
Reactive protocols – DSR
 In a reactive protocol, how to forward a packet to
destination?
 Initially, no information about next hop is available at all
 One (only?) possible recourse: Send packet to all neighbors –
flood the network
 Hope: At some point, packet will reach destination and an answer
is sent pack – use this answer for backward learning the route
from destination to source

 Practically: Dynamic Source Routing (DSR)

 Use separate route request/route reply packets to discover route
 Data packets only sent once route has been established
 Discovery packets smaller than data packets
 Store routing information in the discovery packets
 DSR route discovery procedure
Search for route from 1 to 5
[1] [1,7]
1 2 2
1
[1] 7 7
[1,7]
5 5
4 3 4
6 3
6
[1,4]

2 1 2
1
[1,7,2] 7
7
[1,4,6] 5
5
4 4 3
3 6
6 [5,3,7,1]
[1,7,3]

Node 5 uses route information recorded in RREQ

to send back, via source routing, a route reply
DSR modifications, extensions
 Intermediate nodes may send route replies in case they already know a
route
 Problem: stale route caches
 Promiscuous operation of radio devices – nodes can learn about
topology by listening to control messages
 Random delays for generating route replies
 Many nodes might know an answer – reply storms
 NOT necessary for medium access – MAC should take care of it
 Salvaging/local repair
 When an error is detected, usually sender times out and constructs entire
route anew
 Instead: try to locally change the source-designated route
 Cache management mechanisms
 To remove stale cache entries quickly
 Fixed or adaptive lifetime, cache removal messages, …
Reactive protocols – AODV
 Ad hoc On Demand Distance Vector routing (AODV)
 Very popular routing protocol
 Essentially same basic idea as DSR for discovery procedure
 Nodes maintain routing tables instead of source routing
 Sequence numbers added to handle stale caches
 Nodes remember from where a packet came and populate routing
tables with that information
Reactive protocols – TORA
 Observation: In hilly terrain, routing to a river’s mouth is
easy – just go downhill
 Idea: Turn network into hilly terrain
 Different “landscape” for each destination
 Assign “heights” to nodes such that when going downhill,
destination is reached – in effect: orient edges between neighbors
 Necessary: resulting directed graph has to be cycle free
 Reaction to topology changes
 When link is removed that was the last “outlet” of a node, reverse
direction of all its other links (increase height!)
 Reapply continuously, until each node except destination has at
least a single outlet – will succeed in a connected graph!
Alternative approach: Gossiping/rumor routing
 Turn routing problem around: Think of an “agent”
wandering through the network, looking for data (events, …)
 Agent initially
perform random walk
 Leave “traces” in the
network
 Later agents can use
these traces to find
data
 Essentially: works ?
due to high
probability of line
intersections
Overview

 Unicast routing in MANETs

 Energy efficiency & unicast routing
 Multi-/broadcast routing
 Geographical routing
Energy-efficient unicast: Goals
 Particularly interesting performance metric: Energy efficiency
 Goals 4
 Minimize energy/bit A 2
3
 Example: A-B-E-H 1
 Maximize network 1
lifetime 2 C
3 B
 Time until first node 2
D 1
failure, loss of
coverage, partitioning
2 4
 Seems trivial – use 3 E 2
2 F
proper link/path metrics 1 G
2
(not hop count) and 2
4
standard routing H
Example: Send data from node A to node H
Basic options for path metrics
 Maximum total available
battery capacity
 Path metric: Sum of 4
battery levels A 2
 Example: A-C-F-H 3
1
 Minimum battery cost
routing 1
2 C
 Path metric: Sum of B
reciprocal battery levels 3 2
 Example: A-D-H D 1
 Conditional max-min
battery capacity routing 2 4
2
 Only take battery level 3 E 2 F
into account when below G
a given level 1 2
 Minimize variance in 4 2
power levels
H
 Minimum total
transmission power
A non-trivial path metric
 Previous path metrics do not perform particularly well

 One non-trivial link weight:

 wij weight for link node i to node j
 eij required energy,  some constant, i fraction of battery of node i
already used up
 Path metric: Sum of link weights
 Use path with smallest metric

 Properties: Many messages can be send, high network

lifetime
 With admission control, even a competitive ratio logarithmic in
network size can be shown
Multipath unicast routing
 Instead of only a single path, it can be useful to compute
multiple paths between a given source/destination pair
Disjoint paths Secondary path
 Multiple paths
can be disjoint
or braided
 Used
simultaneously,
alternatively, Source Sink
randomly, … Primary path

Braided paths

Source Sink
Primary path
Overview

 Unicast routing in MANETs

 Energy efficiency & unicast routing
 Multi-/broadcast routing
 Geographical routing
Broadcast & multicast (energy-efficient)
 Distribute a packet to all reachable nodes (broadcast) or
to a somehow (explicitly) denoted subgroup (multicast)
 Basic options
 Source-based tree: Construct a tree (one for each source) to reach
all addressees
 Minimize total cost (= sum of link weights) of the tree
 Minimize maximum cost to each destination
 Shared, core-based trees
 Use only a single tree for all sources
 Every source sends packets to the tree where they are distributed
 Mesh
 Trees are only 1-connected ! use meshes to provide higher
redundancy and thus robustness in mobile environments
Optimization goals for source-based trees
 For each source, Steiner tree
minimize total cost Source Destination 2
2
 This is the Steiner tree
problem again
2 1

Destination 1
 For each source,
minimize maximum cost Shortest path tree
to each destination Source Destination 2
2
 This is obtained by
overlapping the individual
2 1
shortest paths as
computed by a normal
routing protocol Destination 1
Summary of options (broadcast/multicast)

Broadcast Multicast

One tree Shared tree Mesh

per source (core-based tree)

Minimize Minimize Single Multiple

total cost cost to each node core core
(Steiner tree) (e.g., Dijkstra)
Wireless multicast advantage
 Broad-/Multicasting in wireless is unlike broad-/multicasting
in a wired medium
 Wires: locally distributing a packet to n neighbors: n times the cost
of a unicast packet
 Wireless: sending to n neighbors can incur costs
 As high as sending to a single neighbor – if receive costs are
neglected completely
 As high as sending once, receiving n times – if receives are tuned to
the right moment
 As high as sending n unicast packets – if the MAC protocol does not
support local multicast
! If local multicast is cheaper than repeated unicasts, then
wireless multicast advantage is present
 Can be assumed realistically
Steiner tree approximations
 Computing Steiner tree is NP complete
 A simple approximation
 Pick some arbitrary order of all destination nodes + source node
 Successively add these nodes to the tree: For every next node,
construct a shortest path to some other node already on the tree
 Performs reasonably well in practice
 Takahashi Matsuyama heuristic
 Similar, but let algorithm decide which is the next node to be added
 Start with source node, add that destination node to the tree which
has shortest path
 Iterate, picking that destination node which has the shortest path to
some node already on the tree
 Problem: Wireless multicast advantage not exploited!
 And does not really fit to the Steiner tree formulation
Broadcast incremental power (BIP)
 How to broadcast, using the wireless multicast advantage?
 Goal: use as little transmission power as possible
 Idea: Use a minimum-spanning-tree-type construction
(Prim’s algorithm)
 But: Once a node transmits at a given power level &
reaches some neighbors, it becomes cheaper to reach
additional neighbors

 From BIP to multicast incremental power (MIP):

 Start with broadcast tree construction, then prune unnecessary
edges out of the tree
BIP – Algorithm
 BIP – Example
Round 1: A Round 2: A Round 3: A

5 3 4 3 2 3
S 1 B S (1) B S (3) B

10 9 7
3 7 2 7 7

D 1 D 1 D 1
Round 4: A Round 5: A
C C C

2 3 3
S (3) B S (5) B

7 10
6 7

D D
C (1) C (1)
Example for mesh-based multicast
 Two-tier data dissemination
 Overlay a mesh, route along mesh intersections
 Broadcast within the quadrant where the destination is (assumed
to be) located

Sink

Event
Overview

 Unicast routing in MANETs

 Energy efficiency & unicast routing
 Multi-/broadcast routing
 Geographical routing
 Position-based routing
 Geocasting
Geographic routing
 Routing tables contain information to which next hop a
packet should be forwarded
 Explicitly constructed
 Alternative: Implicitly infer this information from physical
placement of nodes
 Position of current node, current neighbors, destination known –
send to a neighbor in the right direction as next hop
 Geographic routing
 Options
 Send to any node in a given area – geocasting
 Use position information to aid in routing – position-based
routing
 Might need a location service to map node ID to node position
Basics of position-based routing
 “Most forward within range r” strategy
 Send to that neighbor that realizes the most forward progress
towards destination
 NOT: farthest away
from sender!

 Nearest node with (any) forward progress

 Idea: Minimize transmission power
 Directional routing
 Choose next hop that is angularly closest to destination
 Choose next hop that is closest to the connecting line to
destination
 Problem: Might result in loops!
Problem: Dead ends
 Simple strategies might send a packet into a dead end
Right hand rule to leave dead ends – GPSR
 Basic idea to get out of a dead end: Put right hand to the
wall, follow the wall
 Does not work if on some inner wall – will walk in circles
 Need some additional rules to detect such circles
 Geometric Perimeter State Routing (GPSR)
 Earlier versions: Compass Routing II, face-2 routing
 Use greedy, “most forward” routing as long as possible
 If no progress possible: Switch to “face” routing
 Face: largest possible region of the plane that is not cut by any edge
of the graph; can be exterior or interior
 Send packet around the face using right-hand rule
 Use position where face was entered and destination position to
determine when face can be left again, switch back to greedy routing
 Requires: planar graph! (topology control can ensure that)
GPSR – Example
 Route packet from node A to node Z
Leave face
routing
E I

B K
F H

Z
A D
Enter
J
face L
routing G
C
Geographic routing without positions – GEM
 Apparent contradiction: geographic, but no position?
 Construct virtual coordinates that preserve enough
neighborhood information to be useful in geographic
routing but do not require actual position determination

 Use polar coordinates

from a center point
 Assign “virtual angle
range” to neighbors of
a node, bigger radius
 Angles are recursively
redistributed to
children nodes
GeRaF
 How to combine position knowledge with nodes turning
on/off?
 Goal: Transmit message over multiple hops to destination node;
deal with topology constantly changing because of on/off node
 Idea: Receiver-initiated forwarding
 Forwarding node S simply broadcasts a packet, without specifying
next hop node
 Some node T will pick it up (ideally, closest to the source) and
forward it
 Problem: How to deal with multiple forwarders?
 Position-informed randomization: The closer to the destination a
forwarding node is, the shorter does it hesitate to forward packet
 Use several annuli to make problem easier, group nodes according
to distance (collisions can still occur)
GeRaF – Example

A4

A3
A2
A1

1 D-1

40
D
Overview

 Unicast routing in MANETs

 Energy efficiency & unicast routing
 Multi-/broadcast routing
 Geographical routing
 Position-based routing
 Geocasting

41
Location-based Multicast (LBM)
 Geocasting by geographically restricted flooding
 Define a “forwarding” zone – nodes in this zone will forward
the packet to make it reach the destination zone
 Forwarding zone specified in packet or recomputed along the way
 Static zone – smallest rectangle containing original source and
destination zone
 Adaptive zone – smallest rectangle containing forwarding node
and destination zone
 Possible dead ends again
 Adaptive distances – packet is forwarded by node u if node u is
closer to destination zone’s center than predecessor node v
(packet has made progress)
 Packet is always forwarded by nodes within the destination
zone itself

42
Determining next hops based on Voronoi diagrams
 Goal: Use that neighbor to forward packet that is closest to
destination among all the neighbors
 Use Voronoi diagram computed for the set of neighbors of
the node currently holding the packet

S
D
A

43
Geocasting using ad hoc routing – GeoTORA
 Recall TORA protocol: Nodes compute a DAG with
destination as the only sink
 Observation: Forwarding along the DAG still works if
multiple nodes are destination (graph has multiple sinks)
 GeoTORA: All nodes in the destination region act as sinks
 Forwarding along DAG; all sinks also locally broadcast the packet
in the destination region

 Remark: This also works for anycasting where destination

nodes need not necessarily be neighbors
 Packet is then delivered to some (not even necessarily closest)
member of the group

44
Trajectory-based forwarding (TBF)
 Think in terms of an “agent”: Should travel around the
network, e.g., collecting measurements
 Random forwarding may take a long time
 Idea: Provide the agent with a certain trajectory along
which to travel
 Described,
e.g., by a
simple curve
 Forward
to node closest
to this trajectory

45
Mobile nodes, mobile sinks
 Mobile nodes cause Source
some additional problems
 E.g., multicast tree to
distribute readings has to Sink moves
be adapted downward

Source

Source

Sink
moves
upward

46
Conclusion
 Routing exploit various sources of information to find
destination of a packet
 Explicitly constructed routing tables
 Implicit topology/neighborhood information via positions
 Routing can make some difference for network lifetime
 However, in some scenarios (streaming data to a single sink),
there is only so much that can be done
 Energy efficiency does not equal lifetime, holds for routing as well
 Non-standard routing tasks (multicasting, geocasting)
require adapted protocols

47
 Unit 4
Security in Wireless Sensor
Networks
 Overview
• WSN security: Too many problems... A number of solutions...
Enough?

• Survey Paper: outlines security issues, discusses some existing

solutions, and suggests possible research directions

• Issues include:
– key establishment
– secrecy
– authentication
– privacy
– denial-of-service attacks  More info in a later set of slides
– secure routing  More info in a later set of slides
– node capture

• Also discuses some sample security services for wireless sensor

networks
Problems Applying Traditional Network Security
Techniques

• Sensor devices are limited in their energy,

computation, and communication capabilities

• Sensor nodes are often deployed in open

areas, thus allowing physical attack

• Sensor networks closely interact with their

physical environments and with people,
posing new security problems
 Key Establishment and Trust

• Sensor devices have limited computational power,

making public-key cryptographic primitives too
expensive in terms of system overhead.

• Simplest solution is a network-wide shared key

– problem: if even a single node were compromised, the secret
key would be revealed, and decryption of all network traffic
would be possible

• Slightly better solution:

– use a single shared key to establish a set of link keys, one
per pair of communicating nodes, then erase the network-
wide key
– problem: does not allow addition of new nodes after initial
deployment
 Key Establishment (continued)

• Bootstrapping keys using a trusted base

station
– Each node needs to share only a single key
with the base station and set up keys with
other nodes through the base station
– The base station becomes a single point of
failure
• Utilize tamper-resistant packaging for the base
station, reducing the threat of physical attack
• Most existing work assumes base station is safe
– Good assumption???
 Random-key pre-distribution protocols

• Large pool of symmetric keys is chosen

• Random subset of the pool is distributed to each sensor node
• To communicate, two nodes search their pools for a common key
– If they find one, they use it to establish a session key
– Not every pair of nodes shares a common key, but if the key-
establishment probability is sufficiently high, nodes can
securely communicate with sufficiently many nodes to obtain
a connected network

• No need to include a central trusted base station

• Disadvantage: Attackers who compromised sufficiently many

nodes could also reconstruct the complete key pool and break
the scheme
 Secrecy and Authentication

• We need cryptography as protection against

eavesdropping, injection, and modification of packets

• Trade-offs when incorporating cryptography into

sensor networks:
– end-to-end cryptography achieves a high level of security but
requires that keys be set up among all end points and be
incompatible with passive participation and local broadcast
– link-layer cryptography with a network-wide shared key
simplifies key setup and supports passive participation and
local broadcast, but intermediate nodes might eavesdrop or
alter messages
 Hardware vs. Software Cryptography

• Hardware solutions are generally more efficient, but

also more costly ($)

• University of California, Berkeley, implementation of

TinySec incurs only an additional 5%–10%
performance overhead using software-only methods
– Most of the overhead is due to increases in packet size
– Cryptographic calculations have little effect on latency or
throughput, since they can overlap with data transfer
– Hardware reduces only the computational costs, not packet
size

• Thus, software-only techniques are sufficient (or

reasonable to be more careful)
 Privacy
• Issues
– Employers might spy on their employees
– Shop owners might spy on customers
– Neighbours might spy on each other
– Law enforcement agencies might spy on
public places
• Technological improvements will only
worsen the problem
– Devices will get smaller and easier to
conceal
– Devices will get cheaper, thus surveillance
will be more affordable
 Privacy (continued)

• Sensor networks raise new threats that are

qualitatively different from what private citizens
worldwide faced before
– Sensor networks allow data collection, coordinated analysis,
and automated event correlation
– Networked systems of sensors can enable routine tracking of
people and vehicles over long periods of time
– EZ Pass + OnStar == Big Brother?

• Suggested ways of approaching solution include a mix

of:
– Societal norms
– New laws
– Technological responses
 Robustness to Denial of Service

• Simple form: Radio jamming

• Sophisticated form: Transmit while a
neighbor is also transmitting or continuously
generating a request-to-send signal
• Possible solution (when the jamming affects
only a portion of the network):
– Detect the jamming
– Map the affected region
– Route around the jammed area
 Secure Routing

• Proper routing and forwarding are essential for

communication in sensor networks

• Injection attacks
– Transmit malicious routing information into the network
resulting in routing inconsistencies
– Authentication might guard against injection attacks, but
some routing protocols are vulnerable to replay by the
attacker of legitimate routing messages

• Sensor network routing protocols are particularly

susceptible to node-capture attacks
– Compromise of a single node could be enough to take over the
entire network or prevent any communication within it
 Resilience to Node Capture

• In traditional computing, physical security is often

taken for granted

• Sensor nodes, by contrast, are likely to be placed in

open locations
– Attacker might capture sensor nodes
– Extract cryptographic secrets
– Modify programs/Replace them with malicious nodes

• Tamper-resistant packaging may be one defense, but

it’s expensive
 Algorithmic Solutions
to Node Capture

• Attempt to build networks that operate

correctly even in the presence of nodes that
might behave in an arbitrarily malicious way
– Replicate state across the network and use
majority voting to detect inconsistencies
– Gather redundant views of the environment and
crosscheck them for consistency

• Most challenging problems in sensor network

security
– We are far from a complete solution
 Network Security Services

• So far, we’ve explored low-level security

primitives for securing sensor networks.
• Now, we consider high-level security
mechanisms.
– Secure group management
– Intrusion detection
– Secure data aggregation
 Secure Group Management

• Protocols for group management are

required to
– securely admit new group members
– support secure group communication
• Outcome of group computation must be
authenticated to ensure it comes from a
valid group
• Any solution must also be efficient in
terms of time and energy
 Intrusion detection
• In wired networks, traffic and computation are typically
monitored and analyzed for anomalies at various
concentration points
– expensive in terms of the network’s memory and energy
consumption
– hurts bandwidth constraints
• Wireless sensor networks require a solution that is fully
distributed and inexpensive in terms of communication,
energy, and memory requirements
• In order to look for anomalies, applications and typical
threat models must be understood
• It is particularly important for researchers and
practitioners to understand how cooperating adversaries
might attack the system
• The use of secure groups may be a promising approach for
decentralized intrusion detection
 Secure Data Aggregation

• One benefit of a wireless sensor network is the fine-grain

sensing that large and dense sets of nodes can provide
• The sensed values must be aggregated to avoid
overwhelming amounts of traffic back to the base station
• Depending on the architecture of the network, aggregation
may take place in many places
– All aggregation locations must be secured
• If the application tolerates approximate answers, powerful
techniques are available
– Randomly sampling a small fraction of nodes and checking
that they have behaved properly supports detection of
many different types of attacks
 Conclusions

• Constraints and open environments of wireless sensor

networks make security for these systems challenging.
• Several properties of sensor networks may provide
solutions.
– architect security into these systems from the
outset (they are still in their early design stages)
– exploit redundancy, scale, and the physical
characteristics of the environment in the solutions
– build sensor networks so that they can detect and
work around some fraction of their nodes which are
compromised
 Future Research Areas

• Securing wireless communication links against

– Eavesdropping
– Tampering
– Traffic analysis
– Denial of service
• Resource constraints
• Asymmetric protocols
– Most of the computation done at base station
• Public-key cryptographic systems
– How to make efficient on low-end devices?
• Working around the lack of physical security
– redundancy
– knowledge about the physical environment
Denial of Service in
Sensor Networks

Anthony D. Wood
and John A. Stankovic
 Why Security?
• Battlefield
• Disasters
– Protect the location and status of casualties from
unauthorized disclosure, particularly if the disaster relates
to ongoing terrorist activities
• Public safety
– False alarms about chemical, biological, or environmental
threats could cause panic or disregard for warning systems.
An attack on the system’s availability could precede a real
attack on the protected resource
• Home healthcare
– Because protecting privacy is paramount, only authorized
users can query or monitor the network. These networks can
also form critical pieces of an accident-notification chain,
thus they must be protected from failure
 DENIAL OF SERVICE THREAT

• A DoS attack is any event that diminishes or

eliminates a network’s capacity to perform its
expected function

• Hardware failures, software bugs, resource

exhaustion, environmental conditions, or their
combination

• Intentional Attack
 Adversary Capability

• Physically damaged or manipulated node

– May be less powerful than a normally functioning
node
• Subverted nodes (or added ones)
– Interact with the network only through software
– As powerful as other nodes
• Immensely more powerful adversaries
– Existing wired network with virtually unlimited
computational and energy resources possible
 Attacks on Physical Layer

• Jamming
– Defenses
• Spread-spectrum
• Region mapping: Less expensive

• Tampering
– Defenses: Tamper-proofing, hiding
 Link Layer Attacks

• Collision
– Use error-correcting codes
• Exhaustion
– Rate limitation
• Unfairness
– Small frames
 Network and Routing Attacks

• Neglect and greed

– Redundancy, probing
• Traffic analysis
– Encryption: enough? Maybe not
• Misdirection
– Egress filtering, authorization, monitoring
• Black holes
– Authorization, monitoring, probing,
redundancy
 Neglect and Greed

• Neglect
– Drops packets arbitrarily
• Greed
– Gives undue priority to it’s own messages

• Use multiple paths and/or redundant

messages to mitigate these effects.
 Traffic Analysis

• Geographic forwarding allows attacker to

figure out where important nodes are

• Encrypting headers as well as content might

alleviate this issue

• Cryptographic means may not help when the

communication pattern is many-to-one
– Just watch traffic intensity
– INSENS [ICDCS ‘03]
 Misdirection

• Diverting traffic away from intended

destination
– Targets the sender
• Misdirecting many flows in one direction
– Targets an arbitrary victim (receiver)
• Defense
– Egress Filtering
• Verification of source addresses
• Legitimately generated from below?
 Black Holes

• Distance-vector-based protocol weakness

• Nodes advertise zero-cost routes to every
other node.
• Fixes:
– Authorization
– Monitoring
• Watchdog the next hop transmission of your packets by
neighbors [Mobicom ’00]
– Probing
• Send periodic messages across topology to test for
blackout regions
– Redundancy
 Transport Layer DoS

• Flooding
– Client puzzles
• Make the adversary commit resources
• Only useful if the adversary has limited
resources
• Desynchronization
– Authentication
PROTOCOL VULNERABILITIES to
DoS

Analyzing these vulnerabilities helps

show why developers should consider
DoS susceptibility at design time.
 Adaptive Rate Control – MAC Protocol
by Woo & Cull
• Give preference to route-through traffic
– This preserves the network’s investment in packets
that may have already traversed many hops

• Makes flooding attacks more effective

– High bandwidth packet streams that an adversary
generates will receive preference
– Thus, the network gives preference to malicious
traffic
 RAP

• Real-time communication architecture

– Geographic forwarding
– Velocity monotonic scheduling (VMS) policy

• Originator of message sets deadline and

destination
– VMS layer computes velocity based on time
to deadline and distance remaining
 RAP Vulnerability

• Flood with high velocity packets

– Set destination at long distance
• Possibly outside the network
• Intermediate node adversary could lower the
velocity of route through traffic
– Causes deadline misses
• If relying on a synchronized clock, attacking
that mechanism could cause another node to
always drop
– Protecting clock synchronization is a challenging
yet important problem by itself
Secure Routing in Wireless Sensor
Networks: Attacks and
Countermeasures
 Key Contributions

• Secure routing issues in WSNs

– Show how they are different from ad hoc
networks
– Introduce two new classes of attacks
• Sinkhole attack
• Hello flood attack
• Analyze security aspects of major routing
protocols
• Discuss countermeasures & design
considerations for secure routing in WSNs
 WSNs vs. Ad Hoc Networks

• Multi-hop wireless communications

• Ad hoc nets: communication between two
arbitrary nodes
• WSNs
– Specialized communication patterns
• Many-to-one
• One-to-many
• Local communication
– More resource constrained
– More trust needed for in-network processing,
aggregation, duplicate elimination
 Assumptions

• Insecure radio links

• Malicious nodes can collude to attack
the WSN
• Sensors are not tamper-resistant
• Adversary can access all key material,
data & code
• Aggregation points may not be
trustworthy
• Base station is trustworthy
 Threat Models

• Device capability
– Mote class attacker
– Laptop class attacker: more energy, more
powerful CPU, sensitive antenna, more radio
power
• Attacker type
– Outside attacker: External to the network
– Inside attacker: Authorized node in the
WSN is compromised or malicious
 Security Goals

• Secure routing
– Support integrity, authenticity, availability
of messages in presence of attack
– Data confidentiality
 Potential Attacks

• Attacks on general WSN routing

• Attacks on specific WSN protocols
 Attacks on General WSN Routing
Protocols
• Spoof, alter, or replay routing info.
– Create loops, attack or repel network
traffic, partition the network, attract or
repel network traffic, etc.
– Message authentication can partly handle
these issues
• Selective forwarding
– Malicious node selectively drops incoming
packets
 Sinkhole attack

• Specific to WSNs
– All packets are directed to base station
– A malicious node advertises a high quality
link to the base station to attract a lot of
packets
– Enable other attacks, e.g., selective
forwarding or wormhole attack
 Sybil attack

• A single node presents multiple ID’s to other

nodes
• Affect geographic routing, distributed
storage, multi-path routing, topology
maintenance
 Wormhole attack

• Two colluding nodes

• A node at one end of the wormhole
advertises high quality link to the base
station
• Another node at the other end receives
the attracted packets
 Hello flood attack

• Specific to WSNs
– In some protocols, nodes have to periodically
broadcast “hello” to advertise themselves
• Not authenticated!
– Laptop-class attacker can convince it’s a neighbor
of distant nodes by sending high power hello
messages
 Acknowledge spoofing

• Adversary spoofs ACKs to convince the

sender a weak/dead link support good
link quality
 Attacks on Specific Routing Protocols

• TinyOS beaconing
– Construct a BFS rooted at the base station
– Beacons are not authenticated
– Adversary can take over the whole WSN by
broadcasting beacons
 Directed diffusion

• Replay interest
• Selective forwarding & data tampering
• Inject false data
 Geographic routing

• Adversary can provide false, possibly

multiple, location info.
– Create routing loop
– GEAR considers energy in addition to
location
• Laptop-class attacker can exploit it
 Countermeasures

• Shared key & link layer encryption

– Prevent outsider attacks, e.g., Sybil attacks, selective
forwarding, ACK spoofing
– Cannot handle insider attacks
• Wormhole, Hello flood, TinyOS beaconing
• Sybil attack
– Every node shares a unique secret key with the base station
– Create pairwise shared key for msg authentication
– Limit the number of neighbors for a node
• Hello flood attack
– Verify link bidirectionality
– Doesn’t work if adversary has very sensitive radio
 Countermeasures
• Wormhole, sinkhole attack
– Cryptography may not help directly
– Good routing protocol design
– Geographic routing
• Geographic routing
– Location verification
– Use fixed topology, e.g., grid structure
• Selective forwarding
– Multi-path routing
– Route messages over disjoint or Braided paths
– Dynamically pick next hop from a set of candidates
– Measure the trustworthiness of neighbors
 Countermeasures

• Authenticated broadcast
– uTESLA

• Base station floods blacklist

– Should be authenticated
– Adversaries must not be able to spoof
 Conclusions

• WSN security is challenging, new area

of research
• #Problems >> #Solutions
• Any ideas to address a problem?
 Unit 5
Sensor Network
Platforms and Tools
Introduce
 WSNs are subject to
 Energy, Bandwidth, Computation, Storage, Real-
time constraints, Ad hoc deployment, Frequently
changing network topology
 Different from traditional distribution systems
 WSNs can hardly assume an always-on
infrastructure.
Introduce
 There two types of programming for WSNs
 End users: query to get data from WSNs
 Application developers: provide end users of a
sensor network with the capabilities of data
acquisition, processing, and storage.
 This chapter focuses on software design
issues.
Introduction
 7.1 Sensor Node Hardware
 7.2 Sensor Network Programming
Challenges
 7.3 Node-Level Software Platforms
 7.4 Node-Level Simulators
 7.5 State-Centric Programming
 7.6 Summary
7.1 Sensor Node Hardware
 Sensor node hardware can be grouped into
three categories
 Augmented general-purpose computers
 Dedicated embedded sensor nodes
 System-on-chip (SoC)
 Berkley motes due to their small form factor,
open source software development, and
commercial availability, have gained wide
popularity in the sensor network research
community.
Augmented general-purpose
computers
 Off-the-shelf operating systems such as
WinCE, Linux and with standard wireless
communication protocols such as 802.11 or
Bluetooth.
 Relatively higher processing capability
 More power hungry
 Fully supported popular programming
languages
 Ex: PDAs
Dedicated embedded sensor
nodes
 In order to keep the program footprint small
to accommodate their small memory size,
programmers of these platforms are given full
access to hardware but barely any operating
system support.
 Typically support at least one programming
language, such as C.
 Ex: mica, TinyOS, nesC
System-on-chip (SoC)
 Build extremely low power and small footprint
sensor nodes that still provide certain sensing,
computation, and communication capabilities.
 Currently in the research pipeline with no
predefined instruction set, there is no
software platform support available.
Berkley motes
Mica mote
 Two-cpu design
 Main microcontroller (MCU), Atmel
 Much less capable coprocessor, only active when the MCU
is being reprogrammed.
 Memory inside the MCU
 512KB flash memory
 4KB data memory
 A separate 512KB flash memory unit that can hold
data.
 50kbps raw data rate (40kbps transmission rate)
 300 feet (90m)
Mica mote
 Fig7.2
Mica mote
 51 pin I/O extension connector
 Sensor board
 Temperature, light, accelerometer, magnetometer,
microphone, beeper
 Communicate with a PC in real time through
serial I/O(UART)
 Parallel connection is primarily for download
programs
Mica mote
 Transmission bears the maximum power
consumption
 Energy-saving
 Suspend the MCU and the RF receiver as long as
possible
Mica mote

Fig7.3
7.2 Sensor Network
Programming Challenges
 Event-driven execution allows the system to
fall into low-power sleep mode when no
interesting events need to be processed.
 At the extreme, embedded operating systems
tend to expose more hardware controls to the
programmers, who now have to directly face
device drivers and scheduling algorithms,
and optimize code at the assembly level.
7.3 Node-level software
platforms
 Node-centric design methodologies:
Programmers think in terms of how a node
should behave in the environment.
 A node-level platform can be a node-centric
OS, which provides hardware and networking
abstractions of a sensor node to
programmers.
7.3.1 TinyOS
 No file system
 Static memory allocation: analyzable, reduce
memory management overhead
 Only parts of OS are compiled with the
application
TinyOS
 A program executed in TinyOS has two
contexts, tasks and events.
 Tasks are posted by components to a task
scheduler. Without preempting or being
preempted by other tasks
 Triggered events can be preempted by other
events and preempt tasks
TinyOS
 Split-phase operation
 Command send()  event sendDone()
 Avoid blocking the entire system
 Not accepting another packet Until sendDone() is
called, avoid race condition
7.3.2 Imperative Language:
nesC
 nesC is an extension of C to support the design of
TinyOS.
 A component has an interface specification and an
implementation.
 A component specification is independent of the
component implementation.
 A provides interface is a set of method calls
exposed to the upper layers.
 A uses interface is a set of method calls hiding the
lower layer components.
nesC

Fig7.7,7.8
nesC
 An event call is a method call from a lower
layer component to a higher layer component.
(signal)
 A command is the opposite. (call)
 A component may use or provide the same
interface multiple times. Give each interface
instance a separate name using as notation.
nesC– component
implementation
 There are two types of components in nesC,
depending on how they are implemented:
modules and configurations.
 Modules are implemented by application
code.
 Configurations are implemented by
connecting interfaces of existing components.
 A.a=B.a, the interface a of A is the interface a of B
 A.a->B.a, interface is hidden from upper layers
nesC

fig7.9,7.10

Error?
HWClock
nesC
 An application must contain the Main module
which links the code to the scheduler at run
time.
 The Main has a single StdControl interface,
which is the ultimate source of initialization of
all components.
nesC—concurrency and
atomicity
 A keyword atomic to indicate that the
execution of a block of statements should not
be preempted.
 Method calls are not allowed in atomic block.
 A shared variable x is outside of an atomic
statement is a compile-time error.
 A norace declaration of the variable can
prevent the compiler from checking the race
condition on that variable.
nesC—concurrency and
atomicity

Fig7.11
7.3.3 Dataflow-style language:
TinyGALS
 Dataflow languages are intuitive for
expressing computation on interrelated data
units by specifying data dependencies among
them.
 A data flow program has a set of processing
units called actors.
 Actors have ports to receive and produce
data.
TinyGALS
 Fig
7.13,14,15

Queue size
7.4~7.6
Node-Level Simulators
 For engineer to perform performance study,
which in terms of
 Power
 Bandwidth
 Etc
Node-Level Simulators (2)
 Simulators are consisted by the following
models
 Sensor node model
 Communication model
 Physical environment model
 Statistics and visualization
Time concept
 A sensor network simulator simulates the
behavior of sensor network with respect to
time
 In which, time may advance in differ ways:
cycle-driven or discrete-event.
Cycle-driven simulation
 A cycle-driven (CD) discretize the continuous
real time into ticks
 Simulator computes phenomenon at each
tick. Like: physical environment, sensing data,
communication data, etc.
 Communication by RF is assumed to be
finished in a tick.
Cycle-driven simulation cont.
 CD simulators are easy to implement and use
 Most CD simulators issue are detecting and
dealing cycle dependencies among nodes
(ex: RF) or algorithms (ex: Thread).
Discrete-event simulation
 Discrete-event (DE) simulator assumes the
time is continuous.
 Usually use a Global event queue to store
events.
 All events are stored chronologically in the
Global event queue.
Example figure
 Sending a big file(1MB), 0.1MB/s max.
 CD
Ticks

 DE
Comparison
 DE simulators are considered as better than
CD simulators, because they are more actual.
But they’re more complex to design and
implement.
 Most popular sensor network simulators are
DE simulators, like TOSSIM and NS2.
Ns2 + Sensor network
 Ns2 was meant to be wired network simulator,
so extensions are being made for wireless
(802.11,TDMA) and sensor networks.
Ns2 + Sensor network cont.
 Protocol supported:

 802.3
 802.11
 TDMA
 Ad hoc routing
 Sensor network routing
TOSSIM
 Which is dedicated to TinyOS applications to
running on Motes.
 With some visualization packet, the TinyViz.
Result can be plot in some more
understandable graphs.
State-Centric Programming
 Applications that isn’t just simply generic
distributed programs over an ad hoc network.
We have to centralize data into nodes.
 EX: target tracking.
State-Centric Programming
 Def:
 X: state of a system
 U: inputs
 Y: outputs
 K: update index
 F: state update function
 G: output observation function
State-Centric Programming
 Xk+1 = F( Xk, Uk )
 Yk = G( Xk ,Uk)

 In state-centric programming, X and K come

from many nodes. So many issue are
discussed.
State-Centric Programming
 Where are the state vars stored?
 Where do the inputs com from?
 Where do the outputs go?
 Where are the functions f and g evaluated?
 How long does the acquisition of inputs take?
Collaboration Group
 Which is a set of entities to update data.
 Protocol example:
 Geographically constrained group
 N-hop neighborhood group
 Publish/Subscribe group
 Acquaintance group
 Mixing
Geographically constrained
group
 Since some phenomenon will be sensed in a
area, GCG is useful.
 By broadcasting from one specific sensor,
those have heard the packet will become the
same group.
N-hop neighborhood group
 An anchor sets the hop limit and
broadcasting it. Those who heard and is
under the limit will become the same group.
 0-hop: itself
 1-hop: neighbors one hop away
Publish/Subscribe group

 Dynamically defined by the requirement

 Only those have interested data will become
the same group.
Acquaintance group

 More dynamically, nodes will be invited to join

a group. They can also quit.
 Group leader is selected beforehand, uses a
ad hoc routing method to retrieve data from
other nodes, then decide which one to invite.
Collaboration Group
 Simulator: PIECES (Programming and
Interacting Environment for Collaborative
Embedded Systems)
Summary
 Overview of software and hardware of sensor
network.
 Most software are tightly bounded with
specific hardware. A generic and high
performance simulator is expected
 Programming methodologies are so
important to sensor network, like VHDL and
Verilog served the VLSI.