Addressing hazards in wireless sensor and actor networks

ABSTRACT

In wireless sensor and actor networks (WSANs), sensors monitor the environment based on which the sink issues commands to actors to act on the environment. In order to provide tight coupling between sensing and acting, an effective coordination mechanism is required among sensors and actors. In this context, we identify the problem of "hazards", which is the out-of-order execution of commands and queries due to lack of coordination between sensors and actors. We identify three hazards and show with an example application, the undesirable consequences of these hazards. We also outline the basic design needed to address this problem efficiently.

REFERENCES

• 1: U. Madhow, "Communications in Digital Battlefield: Fundamental Problems in the Design of Hetrogeneous Networks," in Military Intelligence Report, Nov. 2002.
• 2: R. Vedantham, Z. Zhuang, and R. Sivakumar, "Hazard Avoidance in Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks," in IEEE International Conference on Broadband Networks (BROADNETS), Oct. 2005.