Bounding Communication Delay in Energy Harvesting Sensor Networks

In energy-harvesting sensor networks, limited ambient energy from environment necessitates sensor nodes to operate at a low-duty-cycle, i.e., they communicate briefly and stay asleep most of time. Such low-duty-cycle operation leads to orders of magnitude longer communication delays in comparison wi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in2010 IEEE 30th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems pp. 837 - 847
Main Authors Yu Gu, Tian He
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.06.2010
Subjects
Computer science
Delay effects
Delay systems
Distributed computing
Helium
Power engineering and energy
Prototypes
Sensor phenomena and characterization
Sensor systems
Wireless sensor networks
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Summary:In energy-harvesting sensor networks, limited ambient energy from environment necessitates sensor nodes to operate at a low-duty-cycle, i.e., they communicate briefly and stay asleep most of time. Such low-duty-cycle operation leads to orders of magnitude longer communication delays in comparison with traditional always-active networks, imposing a new challenge in many time-sensitive sensor network applications (e.g., tracking and alert). In this paper, we introduce novel solutions for bounding sink-to-node communications in energy-harvesting sensor networks. We first present an optimal solution for the sink-to-one case and its distributed implementation. For the sink-to-many case, we theoretically prove its NP-Hardness and in approximability property, followed by an efficient heuristic solution. We have evaluated our design with both extensive simulation and a TinyOS/Mote based implementation. Compared with an improved version of a state-of-the-art design, our delay maintenance design effectively provides E2E delay guarantees while consuming as much as 60% less energy.
ISBN:142447261X
9781424472611
ISSN:1063-6927
DOI:10.1109/ICDCS.2010.41