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Chowkidar: Reliable and scalable health monitoring for wireless sensor network testbeds

Published:09 February 2009Publication History
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Abstract

Wireless sensor network (WSN) testbeds are useful because they provide a way to test applications in an environment that makes it easy to deploy experiments, configure them statically or dynamically, and gather performance information. However, WSNs are typically composed of low-cost devices and tend to be unreliable, with failures a common phenomenon. Accurate knowledge of network health status, including nodes and links of each type, is critical for correctly configuring applications on WSN testbeds and for interpreting the data collected from them.

In this article we present a stabilizing protocol, Chowkidar, that provides accurate and efficient network health monitoring in WSNs. Our approach adapts the well-known problem of message-passing rooted spanning tree construction and its use in propagation of information with feedback (PIF) for the case of a WSN. The Chowkidar protocol is initiated upon demand; that is, it does not involve ongoing maintenance, and it terminates with accurate results, including detection of failure and restart during the monitoring process. Chowkidar is distinguished from others in two important ways. Given the resource constraints of WSNs, it is message-efficient in that it uses only a few messages per node. Also, it tolerates ongoing node and link failure and node restart, in contrast to requiring that faults stop during convergence.

We have implemented the Chowkidar protocol as part of enabling a network health status service that is tightly integrated with a remotely accessible wireless sensor network testbed, Kansei, at The Ohio State University. We present experimental results from this testbed that validate the correctness and performance of Chowkidar. We also report on initial experiences and lessons learnt from the integration of Chowkidar with Kansei, including feedback from both testbed users and administrators who have found Chowkidar to be a useful tool for improving the accuracy and efficiency of testbed experimentation and maintenance, and the need for well-defined policies to address issues such as minimizing interference with concurrently running experiments. Finally, we discuss extensions that enhance the functionality and usability of Chowkidar.

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  1. Chowkidar: Reliable and scalable health monitoring for wireless sensor network testbeds

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            William W. Oblitey

            Bapat et al. present a set of protocols for monitoring the state of wireless sensor networks. They call their monitoring protocols Chowkidar, which means "watchman" in Hindi and is thus an appropriate name for a set of protocols that monitor the state of devices in wireless sensor networks. The motivation for developing these monitoring protocols stems from the practice of using low-cost and unreliable devices in the construction and deployment of most wireless sensor networks, which leads to the need to constantly anticipate the running condition of the devices in the sensor network. The authors examine related work and indicate the differences and the shortfalls, when compared to their own monitoring protocols. They present their protocols, as well as elaborate arguments to prove their correctness and to demonstrate that node or link failures in the wireless sensor network should not be confused with a problem in the monitoring protocol itself. Bapat et al. also prove their protocols' robustness and their tolerance to failures, despite nonresponsive links and nodes, especially in the tree formation protocol. The paper reports on a number of experiments that the authors ran to measure performance, using their distributed Chowkidar protocol; the results are then compared with those of a centralized version of their protocol. Two tables and 11 figures are carefully employed to prove the correctness and robustness of the various protocols that constitute the Chowkidar monitoring protocol. Online Computing Reviews Service

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            • Published in

              cover image ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems
              ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems  Volume 4, Issue 1
              January 2009
              213 pages
              ISSN:1556-4665
              EISSN:1556-4703
              DOI:10.1145/1462187
              Issue’s Table of Contents

              Copyright © 2009 ACM

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              Association for Computing Machinery

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              Publication History

              • Published: 9 February 2009
              • Accepted: 1 September 2008
              • Revised: 1 July 2008
              • Received: 1 April 2007
              Published in taas Volume 4, Issue 1

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