GS 3: scalable self-configuration and self-healing in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

We present GS 3, a distributed algorithm for scalable self-configuration and self-healing in multi-hop wireless sensor networks. The algorithm enables network nodes in a 2D plane to configure themselves into a cellular hexagonal structure where cells have tightly bounded geographic radius and the overlap between neighboring cells is low. The structure is self-healing under various perturbations, such as node joins, leaves, deaths, movements, and state corruptions. For instance, the structure slides as a whole if nodes in many cells die at the same rate. Moreover, its configuration and healing are scalable in three respects: first, local knowledge enables each node to maintain only limited information with respect to a constant number of nearby nodes; second, local self-healing guarantees that all perturbations are contained within a tightly bounded region with respect to the perturbed area and dealt with in the time taken to diffuse a message across the region; third, only local coordination is needed in both configuration and self-healing.