Hierarchical Routing in Low-Power Wireless Networks
Konrad Iwanicki · Digital Academic REpository of VU University Amsterdam (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) · 2010
POINT-TO-POINT routing is fundamental functionality in the Internet. Its objective is finding paths in the network along which any two devices (nodes) in different parts of the globe can exchange data with each other. It is the only functionality shared by all Internet nodes, be they in the Internet core or at its end-points, and conversely, to be a fully-fledged Internet node, any novel device has to implement this functionality. Wireless sensor nodes are such novel devices that aim to extend the digital world of the Internet into the surrounding physical world. They are tiny and are equipped with sensors and actuators, so that, embedded in the surrounding environment, they can sense various features of the environment and respond to these features by actuating physical objects, thereby controlling the environment. To fulfill this task, the devices have to communicate with each other via low-power radios, forming so-called wireless sensor networks (abbreviated sensornets or WSNs), and also with other devices on the Internet. To this end, in principle they need point-to-point routing functionality. The objective of this dissertation is thus to provide a point-to-point routing protocol for sensornets. Developing such a protocol, however, is extremely challenging. Due to their embedding in physical space, sensor nodes are severely constrained in terms of memory, bandwidth, and processing power. Moreover, the low-power wireless communication they employ is unreliable and does not allow for engineering node Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission of the author and/or a fee. Konrad Iwanicki: “Hierarchical Routing in Low-Power Wireless Networks,” PhD Dissertation, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 2010. Copyright c © 2010 by Konrad Stanislaw Iwanicki.