Diagnosis of sensor networks

As sensor nodes are embedded into physical environments and becoming integral parts of our daily lives, sensor networks will become the important nerve systems that monitor and actuate our physical environments. We define the process of monitoring the status of a sensor network and figuring out the problematic sensor nodes sensor network diagnosis. However, the high sensor node-to-manager ratio makes it extremely difficult to pay special attention to any individual node. In addition, the response implosion problem, which occurs when a high volume of incoming replies triggered by diagnosis queries cause the central diagnosing node to become a bottleneck, is one major obstacle to be overcome. We describe approaches to addressing the response implosion problem in sensor network diagnosis. We also present simulation experiments on the performance of these approaches, and discuss presentation schemes for diagnostic results