A Comparative Study of Protocols for Efficient Data Propagation in Smart Dust Networks

Abstract

Abstract. Smart Dust is comprised of a vast number of ultra-small fully autonomous computing and communication devices, with very restricted energy and computing capabilities, that co-operate to accomplish a large sensing task. Smart Dust can be very useful in practice i.e. in the local detection of a remote crucial event and the propagation of data reporting its realization to a control center. In this work, we have implemented and experimentally evaluated four protocols (PFR, LTP and two variations of LTP which we here introduce) for local detection and propagation in smart dust networks, under new, more general and realistic modelling assumptions. We comparatively study, by using extensive experiments, their behavior highlighting their relative advantages and disadvantages. All protocols are very successful. In the setting we considered here, PFR seems to be faster while the LTP based protocols are more energy efficient.

A probabilistic algorithm for efficient and robust data propagation in wireless sensor networks

“…For a comparative study of the multi-path delivery PFR protocol to single path delivery (the Local Target Protocol, LTP), see [5,6,9]. For other important aspects of energy efficiency (such as energy balance) see [12,3].…”

Medium access control in wireless sensor networks

“…In this way nearby sensor nodes that receive a message to forward do not all transmit at the same time and the probability of a successful transmission increases. To route the messages, the protocols use the Probabilistic Forwarding Protocol (PFR), presented earlier [27], at the network layer. PFR assumes that sensor nodes have a directional transmission capability, knowledge of the base station direction (sensor nodes do not need the actual base station location), and that sensor nodes generate traffic only for the base station.…”

Adaptive techniques for proactive collision avoidance for multi-path data propagation in wireless sensor networks

“…In this work we decided to use a characteristic multi-path protocol, the PFR protocol [7,6] which is based only on local information and succeeds in efficiently propagating information to the sink without flooding the network (although each transmitting particle broadcasts around it), by probabilistically favouring certain close to optimal "paths" towards the sink and also by avoiding any control messages. The analysis conducted in [7] shows that PFR is very efficient, in terms of energy consumption, while achieving high success rates even in the case where part of the network fails.…”

“…A comparative study of single-path and multi-path protocols conducted in [6] shows that multi-path protocols can achieve high success rates in terms of time and hop efficiency, while single-path protocols manage to reduce the energy spent in the process by activating less particles. For a detailed discussion of energy efficiency aspects of data propagation, see [3].…”

“…Recently, a new approach has been developed, that uses multiple paths of intermediate nodes to propagate information [7,6]. In this multi-path data propagation, information is broadcast to more than one node in each single hop, without, however, flooding the network.…”