Reconfiguration and management in Wireless Sensor Networks

The next generation of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) will need to be sustainable in the field. Sustainability presents a number of management difficulties. Among these challenges is field programmability. Future WSNs will consist of nodes with different architectures, capabilities, and operating systems. Current solutions for reprogramming WSNs either require homogenous networks or substantial overhead. Our node management layer, Trigger, can wirelessly reconfigure heterogeneous nodes when only a few parameters need to be changed. Our method has a manageable processor overhead while significantly decreasing network traffic. Trigger provides field-programmability to the WSN. This reconfiguration can simply rectify node-management tasks like sensor drift in a node. Furthermore, Trigger contains an abstraction of node context. This means Trigger can make local decisions about policy (like power management). Trigger is an easy, lightweight method to change program and node parameters and to manage node policy.