Distributed Decision Making Algorithm for Self-Healing Sensor Networks

Sensor nodes are unreliable small devices with limited energy supply, and sensors may run out of power or fail over time. A sensor network should have self-healing capability to handle coverage holes, routing voids and disconnections caused by random sensor locations and sensor failures. To provide self-healing capabilities in sensor networks while keeping the cost low, we propose to deploy a small number of mobile sensors in addition to a large number of static sensors. A mobile sensor may receive multiple requests from different areas. In this paper, we present a distributed decision making algorithm based on fuzzy logic. The distributed algorithm has low computation requirement and is robust to incomplete information. Our extensive simulations demonstrate the self-healing capabilities provided by mobile sensors, and the good performance of the distributed decision making algorithm.