Remote reprogramming mechanism for WSN

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks need an efficient and reliable reprogramming service to facilitate management and maintenance tasks. In this paper, we propose a reprogramming mechanism, which is based on the hierarchy in the network. We divide the nodes in the network into two types of nodes (i.e. super nodes and normal nodes). We first send codes to nodes in the upper layer of the node hierarchy (i.e., super nodes). Then super nodes reprogram other nodes in their local areas. Super nodes can be cluster head nodes, or a set of connected dominating nodes that are sufficient to cover the whole network. As the network size grows, it is difficult to send the whole application binary over the air to all the nodes. With our approach we overcome the problems like sender redundancy, data redundancy in classic flooding. Our results show that it is a quick mechanism for reprogramming the sensor nodes. Our approach also reduces the network traffic and results in less utilization of the resources. Our design assumes the prior knowledge of the network topology.