Fountain Codes Based Distributed Storage Algorithms for Large-Scale Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

We consider large-scale networks with n nodes, out of which k are in possession, (e.g., have sensed or collected in some other way) k information packets. In the scenarios in which network nodes are vulnerable because of, for example, limited energy or a hostile environment, it is desirable to disseminate the acquired information throughout the network so that each of the n nodes stores one (possibly coded) packet and the original k source packets can be recovered later in a computationally simple way from any (1 + ǫ)k nodes for some small ǫ > 0.We developed two distributed algorithms for solving this problem based on simple random walks and Fountain codes. Unlike all previously developed schemes, our solution is truly distributed, that is, nodes do not know n, k or connectivity in the network, except in their own neighborhoods, and they do not maintain any routing tables. In the first algorithm, all the sensors have the knowledge of n and k. In the second algorithm, each sensor estimates these parameters through the random walk dissemination. We present analysis of the communication/transmission and encoding/decoding complexity of these two algorithms, and provide extensive simulation results as well 1 .

A survey on fault tolerance in small and large scale wireless sensor networks

“…The coding techniques overcome the problem of increasing amount of data when storing several copies. Two main storage classes are used for WSNs: Fountain Codes Based Distributed Storage (FCBDS) [63] and Raptor Codes Based Distributed Storage (RCBDS) [64].…”

“…In [63], the authors presented two redundant data storage schemes based on FCBDS. They considered a large scale wireless sensor network with n nodes and only k (k << n) sensors handling information.…”

“…In the two algorithms LT-Codes based Distributed Storage (LTCDS) I and II [63], the source packets are distributed throughout the network by a simple random walk. During the walk, each node transmits the packet to one neighbor chosen uniformly in a random way.…”

An efficient network reprogramming protocol for wireless sensor networks

“…Crepaldi et al and Rossi et al propose two different code dissemination protocols for wireless sensor network reprogramming, named FRP [45] and SYNAPSE [46]. These two protocols both adopt the code methodology called Fountain Code [47][48][49][50]. Ha et al prove that Luby Transform (LT) code [51] is also an implementation of Fountain Code.…”

In-network Coding for Resilient Sensor Data Storage and Efficient Data Mule Collection

“…But the total message cost is O(n √ n) for uniformly randomly distributed sensors. Fountain codes and other erasure codes have been used for in-network coding [1,2,13,14] as well. These papers use random walk with the Metropolis algorithm to disseminate packets from data nodes.…”