Self-stabilizing synchronization in mobile sensor networks with covering

• Published in: Proceedings of the 6th IEEE international conference on Distributed Computing in Sensor Systems pp. 362 - 378
• Main Authors: Beauquier, Joffroy, Burman, Janna
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin, Heidelberg Springer-Verlag 21.06.2010
• Series: ACM Other Conferences
• Subjects: Software and its engineering; Software and its engineering > Software organization and properties; Software and its engineering > Software organization and properties > Software system structures; Software and its engineering > Software organization and properties > Software system structures > Distributed systems organizing principles; synchronization; cover time; self-stabilization; phase clock; population protocols
• ISBN: 3642136508; 9783642136504
• DOI: 10.5555/2163970.2163996

Synchronization is widely considered as an important service in distributed systems which may simplify protocol design. Phase clock is a general synchronization tool that provides a form of a logical time. This paper presents a self-stabilizing (a tolerating state-corrupting transient faults) phase clock algorithm suited to the model of population protocols with covering. This model has been proposed recently for sensor networks with a very large, possibly unknown number of anonymous mobile agents having small memory. Agents interact in pairs in an asynchronous way subject to the constraints expressed in terms of the cover times of agents. The cover time expresses the “frequency” of an agent to communicate with all the others and abstracts agent’s communication characteristics (e.g. moving speed/patterns, transmitting/receiving capabilities). We show that a phase clock is impossible in the model with only constant-state agents. Hence, we assume an existence of resource-unlimited agent - the base station. The clock size and duration of each phase of the proposed phase clock tool are adjustable by the user. We provide application examples of this tool and demonstrate how it can simplify the design of protocols. In particular, it yields a solution to Group Mutual Exclusion problem.