Section: Research Program

Data Gathering and Dissemination

A large number of WSN applications mostly do data gathering (a.k.a “convergecast”). These applications usually require small delays for the data to reach the gateway node, requiring time consistency across gathered data. This time consistency is usually achieved by a short gathering period.

In many real WSN deployments, the channel used by the WSN usually encounters perturbations such as jamming, external interferences or noise caused by external sources (e.g. a polluting source such as a radar) or other coexisting wireless networks (e.g. WiFi, Bluetooth). Commercial sensor nodes can communicate on multiple frequencies as specified in the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. This reality has given birth to the multichannel communication paradigm in WSNs.

Multichannel WSNs significantly expand the capability of single-channel WSNs by allowing parallel transmissions, and avoiding congestion on channels or performance degradation caused by interfering devices.

In EVA, we will focus on raw data convergecast in multichannel low-power wireless networks. In this context, we are interested in centralized/distributed algorithms that jointly optimize the channel and time slot assignment used in a data gathering frame. The limits in terms of reliability, latency and bandwidth will be evaluated. Adaptivity to additional traffic demands will be improved.