The Tenet architecture for tiered sensor networks

Abstract

Most sensor network research and software design has been guided by an architectural principle that permits multi-node data fusion on small-form-factor, resource-poor nodes, or motes. We argue that this principle leads to fragile and unmanageable systems and explore an alternative. The Tenet architecture is motivated by the observation that future largescale sensor network deployments will be tiered, consisting of motes in the lower tier and masters, relatively unconstrained 32-bit platform nodes, in the upper tier. Masters provide increased network capacity. Tenet constrains multinode fusion to the master tier while allowing motes to process locally-generated sensor data. This simplifies application development and allows mote-tier software to be reused. Applications running on masters task motes by composing task descriptions from a novel tasklet library. Our Tenet implementation also contains a robust and scalable networking subsystem for disseminating tasks and reliably delivering responses. We show that a Tenet pursuit-evasion application exhibits performance comparable to a mote-native implementation while being considerably more compact.

Enhanced Coordination in Sensor Networks through Flexible Service Provisioning

“…This capability allows TelosB to join and contribute to a WSN as providers of services to more powerful devices. As shown in previous work [22] and our case study presented in Section 6, effective integration of resourceconstrained and more powerful devices can combine the advantages of pervasive lowpower sensing and computational resources, and enhance energy efficiency. This example shows how Servilla's modular architecture enables support of diverse hardware platforms.…”

“…The idea of having a hierarchy within a WSN is promoted by other systems. Tenet [22] creates a two-tired WSN in which the lower tier consists of resource-poor devices that can accept tasks from higher-tier devices. It differs from Servilla in that it does not support service discovery and dynamic binding between different devices.…”

Scalable and Practical Pursuit-Evasion

“…Tenet [12], a readily available open-source software package for programming wireless sensor networks, is the software that collects the beacon signal strength. A centralized robot location server then applies a voting scheme on a sliding window of reports to generate a location estimate.…”

RHA: A robust hybrid architecture for information processing in wireless sensor networks

“…Prior work has explored leveraging heterogeneous hardware platforms [1], [2]. Tenet [2] argues that WSNs should be asymmetrical in their task allocation, but do not consider how to minimize samples taken by motes.…”

“…Tenet [2] argues that WSNs should be asymmetrical in their task allocation, but do not consider how to minimize samples taken by motes. Lance [3] reduces transmissions by data prioritization, but does not reduce the sampled data.…”