Active rules for wireless networks of sensors & actuators

ABSTRACT

The last few years have witnessed a flurry of research in the field of query processing for networks of sensors and actuators. It is widely accepted that query processing is the method of choice for acquiring data from a sensor field. Although query processing offers a very good computational model for a variety of applications such as environmental monitoring, it is a poor match for application scenarios where a timely response to an event is required by the system. With this in mind, we propose a mature database technology, namely active rules, that provides a natural computational paradigm for sensor network applications that require reactive behavior, such as rapid forest fire response and security management.

For the remainder of this paper we will outline the implications of active rules for sensor networks and contrast these against query processing. We will then proceed to discuss work in progress carried out by project <i>Asene</i> (Active SEnsor NEtworks) that aims to address these implications. We conclude by introducing our architecture for a decentralised event broker based on the publish/subscribe paradigm and our early design of an Event-Condition-Action (ECA) language for sensor networks.

REFERENCES

• 1: Samuel Madden , Michael J. Franklin , Joseph M. Hellerstein , Wei Hong, The design of an acquisitional query processor for sensor networks, Proceedings of the 2003 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of data, June 09-12, 2003, San Diego, California [doi>10.1145/872757.872817]
• 2: Yong Yao , Johannes Gehrke, The cougar approach to in-network query processing in sensor networks, ACM SIGMOD Record, v.31 n.3, September 2002 [doi>10.1145/601858.601861]
• 3: Norman W. Paton , Oscar Díaz, Active database systems, ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), v.31 n.1, p.63-103, March 1999 [doi>10.1145/311531.311623]
• 4: J. M. Hellerstein, W. Hong, S. Madden, K. Stanek, 'Beyond Average: toward sophisticated sensing with queries', Proc. of IPSN 2003, Palo Alto, CA, 2003.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.2 DATABASE MANAGEMENT
      H.2.4 Systems
          Subjects: Distributed databases

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.2 DATABASE MANAGEMENT
      H.2.4 Systems
          Subjects: Rule-based databases

General Terms:
Design, Management, Performance

Keywords:
ECA rules, active databases, event management, publish/subscribe, sensor databases