Reliable networks with unreliable sensors

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) deployed in hostile environments suffer from a high rate of node failure. We investigate the effect of such failure rate on network connectivity. We provide a formal analysis that establishes the relationship between node density, network size, failure probability, and network connectivity. We show that large networks can maintain connectivity despite a significantly high probability of node failure. We derive mathematical functions that provide lower bounds on network connectivity in WSNs. We compute these functions for some realistic values of node reliability, area covered by the network, and node density, to show that, for instance, networks with over a million nodes can maintain connectivity with a probability exceeding 95% despite node failure probability exceeding 53%.     

Limiting distributions in queueing networks with unreliable elements

We consider multichannel systems and open queueing networks with unreliable elements: nodes, paths between nodes, and channels at nodes. Computation of limiting distributions in a product form for these models is based on choosing recovery schemes for unreliable elements (independent recovery, recovery at a single site, recovering network scheme), routing algorithms, and service disciplines. Thus, by introducing a certain control, we constructively relate queueing theory with reliability theory. Results of the paper can be transferred to closed networks almost without changes.     

Coloring unstructured radio networks

During and immediately after their deployment, ad hoc and sensor networks lack an efficient communication scheme rendering even the most basic network coordination problems difficult. Before any reasonable communication can take place, nodes must come up with an initial structure that can serve as a foundation for more sophisticated algorithms. In this paper, we consider the problem of obtaining a vertex coloring as such an initial structure. We propose an algorithm that works in the unstructured radio network model. This model captures the characteristics of newly deployed ad hoc and sensor networks, i.e. asynchronous wake-up, no collision-detection, and scarce knowledge about the network topology. When modeling the network as a graph with bounded independence, our algorithm produces a correct coloring with O(Δ) colors in time O(Δ log n) with high probability, where n and Δ are the number of nodes in the network and the maximum degree, respectively. Also, the number of locally used colors depends only on the local node density. Graphs with bounded independence generalize unit disk graphs as well as many other well-known models for wireless multi-hop networks. They allow us to capture aspects such as obstacles, fading, or irregular signal-propagation. A preliminary version of this work has been published in [20] as Coloring Unstructured Radio Networks, In Proceedings of the 17th Symposium on Parallel Algorithms and Architectures (SPAA), Las Vegas, Nevada, 2005.     

Capacity assignment in computer communication networks with unreliable links

This paper considers the problem of selecting the optimum capacities of the links in a computer communication network which employs unreliable links. Given the nodes, links, link probabilities, grade of service and cost functions of the network, the objective of this problem is to find the optimum link capacities that minimize the network design cost, subject to the constraint equation involving the grade of service. This is essentially a combinatorial optimization problem. A general methematical model for this problem is formulated and a set of feasible solutions is obtained using Lagrangean relaxation and subgradient optimization techniques. A simulation study has been performed to verify the model, and favourable results obtained for a variety of nontrivial networks.     

Broadcasting in dynamic radio networks

It is reasonable to claim that almost all major questions related to radio broadcasting can be considered closed as far as static networks are considered: the network never changes during the entire protocol's execution. On the other hand, theoretical results on communication protocols in any scenario where the network topology may change during protocol's execution (i.e. a dynamic radio network) are very few.In this paper, we present a theoretical study of broadcasting in radio networks having dynamic unknown topology. The dynamic network is modeled by means of adversaries: we consider two of them. We first analyze an oblivious, memoryless random adversary that can be seen as the dynamic version of the average-case study presented by Elsässer and Gasieniec in JCSS, 2006. We then consider the deterministic worst-case adversary that, at each time slot, can make any network change (thus the strongest adversary). This is the dynamic version of the worst-case study provided by Bar-Yehuda, Goldreich and Itai in JCSS, 1992.In both cases we provide tight bounds on the completion time of randomized broadcast protocols.     

Causal delivery of messages with real-time data in unreliable networks

Causal order states that for any process the order in which it is delivered messages cannot violate the happened-before relation of the corresponding sendings. Such a communication abstraction has been defined for reliable distributed systems in which data of application messages have unlimited time validity. In this paper we extend the notion of causal order to cope with unreliable communication networks in which messages have real-time delivery constraints. In particular, we assume that messages have a limited time validity, , after which their data can no longer be used by the application, and that some of them can be lost by the communication network. This new abstraction, called -causal order, requires to deliver as many messages as possible within their validity time in such a way that these deliveries respect causal order. Two efficient implementations are proposed in the case of one-to-one and broadcast communication. Examples of distributed multimedia real-time applications, in which scheduling messages deliveries respecting -causal order is a crucial point for the quality of the service, are given.     

Non-derivative algorithm design for efficient routing over unreliable stochastic networks

We study the question of routing for minimum average drop rate over unreliable servers that are susceptible to random buffer failures, which arises in unreliable data or manufacturing networks. Interestingly, we first reveal that the traditional Join-the-Shortest-Queue (JSQ) or optimal Randomized Splitting (RS) strategies are consistently outperformed by the Constant Splitting Rule (CSR) where the incoming traffic is split with a constant fraction towards the available servers.This finding motivates us to obtain the optimal splitting fraction under CSR. However, the objective function to be minimized depends on the mean queue length of the servers, whose closed-form expression is not available and often intractable for general arrival and service processes. Thus, we use non-derivative methods to solve this optimization problem by approximately evaluating the objective value at each iteration. To that end, we explicitly characterize the approximation error by utilizing the regenerating nature of unreliable buffers. By adaptively controlling the precision of this approximation, we show that our proposed algorithm converges to an optimal splitting decision in the almost sure sense. Yet, previous works on non-derivative methods assume continuous differentiability of the objective function, which is not the case in our setup. We relax this strong assumption to the case when the objective function is locally Lipschitz continuous, which is another contribution of this paper.     

Weighted broadcast in linear radio networks

The weighted version of the broadcast range assignment problem in ad hoc wireless network is studied. Efficient algorithms are presented for the unbounded and bounded-hop broadcast problems for the linear radio network, where radio stations are placed on a straight line. For the unbounded case of the problem, the proposed algorithm runs in O(n²) time and using O(n) space, where n is the number of radio stations in the network. For the h-hop broadcast problem, the time and space complexities of our algorithm are O(hn²logn) and O(hn), respectively. This improves time complexity of the existing results for the same two problems by a factor of n and , respectively [C. Ambuhl, A.E.F. Clementi, M.D. Ianni, G. Rossi, A. Monti, R. Silvestri, The range assignment problem in non-homogeneous static ad hoc networks, in: Proc. 18th Int. Parallel and Distributed Precessing Symposium, 2004].     

Centralized asynchronous broadcast in radio networks

We study asynchronous broadcasting in packet radio networks. A radio network is represented by a directed graph, in which one distinguished source node stores a message that needs to be disseminated among all the remaining nodes. An asynchronous execution of a protocol is a sequence of events, each consisting of simultaneous deliveries of messages. The correctness of protocols is considered for specific adversarial models defined by restrictions on events the adversary may schedule. A protocol specifies how many times the source message is to be retransmitted by each node. The total number of transmissions over all the nodes is called the work of the broadcast protocol; it is used as complexity measure. We study computational problems, to be solved by deterministic centralized algorithms, either to find a broadcast protocol or to verify the correctness of a protocol, for a given network. The amount of work necessary to make a protocol correct may have to be exponential in the size of network. There is a polynomial-time algorithm to find a broadcast protocol for a given network. We show that certain problems about broadcasting protocols for given networks are complete in NP and co-NP complexity classes.     

Energy-efficient permutation routing in radio networks

A radio network (RN, for short) is a distributed system populated by small, hand-held commodity devices running on batteries. Since recharging batteries may not be possible while on mission, we are interested in designing protocols that are highly energy efficient. One of the most effective energy-saving strategies is to mandate that the stations go to sleep whenever they do not transmit or receive messages. It is well known that a station is expending power while its transceiver is active, that is, while transmitting or receiving a packet. It is perhaps surprising at first that a station is expending power even if it receives a packet that is not destined for it. Since, in single-hop radio networks, every station is within transmission range from every other station, the design of energy-efficient protocols is highly nontrivial. An instance of the permutation routing problem involves p stations of an RN, each storing n/p items. Each item has a unique destination which is the identity of the station to which the item must be routed. The goal is to route all the items to their destinations while expending as little energy as possible. Since, in the worst case, each item must be transmitted at least once, every permutation routing protocol must take n/k time slots. Similarly, each station must be awake for at least n/p time slots to transmit and/or receive packets. Our main contribution is to present an almost optimal energy-efficient permutation routing protocol for a k-channel, a p-station RN that routes n packets in at most (2d+2b+1)n/k+k time slots with no station being awake for more than (4d+7b-1)n/p time slots, where d=[(logp/k)/(logn/p)], b=[(log k)/(logn/p)] and k⩽√(p/2). Since, in most real-life situations, the number n of packets to route, the number p of stations in the RN, and the number k of channels available satisfy the relation k≪p≪n, it follows that d and b are very small     

Activating anonymous ad hoc radio networks

We consider the task of activating an anonymous ad hoc radio network from a single source, by a deterministic algorithm. In the beginning only the source is active and has to activate other nodes by disseminating messages throughout the network. Nodes of the network do not know its topology and they do not have distinct labels. In such networks some nodes are impossible to reach. A node in a network is accessible if it can be activated by some (possibly network-dependent) deterministic algorithm. We show that the problem of recognizing whether a given node of an anonymous radio network is accessible, can be solved in polynomial time for the synchronous scenario. A deterministic wake-up algorithm for ad hoc networks is universal if it activates all accessible nodes in all networks. We study the question of the existence of such a universal activating algorithm. For synchronous communication we design a universal activating algorithm, and for asynchronous communication we show that no such algorithm exists. Research partially supported by NSERC discovery grant and by the Research Chair in Distributed Computing at the Université du Québec en Outaouais. A preliminary version of this paper (with title “Waking up anonymous ad hoc radio networks”) appeared in the Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2005), September 2005, Cracow, Poland.     

Broadcast-efficient protocols for mobile radio networks

The main contribution of this work is to present elegant broadcast-efficient protocols for permutation routing, ranking, and sorting on single-hop Mobile Radio Networks with p stations and k radio channels, denoted by MRN(p,k). Clearly, any protocol performing these tasks on n items must perform ⁿ/_k broadcast rounds because each item must be broadcast at least once. We begin by presenting an optimal off-line permutation routing protocol using ⁿ /_k broadcast rounds for arbitrary k, p, and n. Further, we show that optimal on-line routing can be performed in ⁿ/ _k broadcast rounds, provided that either k=1 or p=n. We then go on to develop an online routing protocol that takes 2ⁿ/ _k+k-1 broadcast rounds on the MRN(p,k), whenever k⩽√^p/₂. Using these routing protocols as basic building blocks, we develop a ranking protocol that takes 2ⁿ /_k+o(ⁿ/_k) broadcast rounds as well as a sorting protocol that takes 3ⁿ/_k+o(ⁿ/_k) broadcast rounds, provided that k ϵ o(√n) and p=n. Finally, we develop a ranking protocol that takes 3ⁿ/_k+o(ⁿ/ _k) broadcast rounds, as well as a sorting protocol that takes 4ⁿ/_k+o(ⁿ/_k) broadcast rounds on the MRN(p,k), provided that k⩽√^p/₂ and p ϵ o(n). Featuring very low proportionality constants, our protocols offer a vast improvement over the state of the art     

Estimating unreliable objects and system reliability in P2P networks

Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications - It is a very difficult task to estimate abnormal objects and analyze reliability in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. In the P2P network environment,...     

Acknowledged broadcasting in ad hoc radio networks

We consider ad hoc radio networks in which each node knows only its own identity but is unaware of the topology of the network, or of any bound on its size or diameter. Acknowledged broadcasting (AB) is a communication task consisting in transmitting a message from a distinguished source to all other nodes of the network and making this fact common knowledge among all nodes. To do this, the underlying directed graph must be strongly connected. Working in a model allowing all nodes to transmit spontaneously even before getting the source message, Chlebus et al. [B. Chlebus, L. Ga?sieniec, A. Gibbons, A. Pelc, W. Rytter, Deterministic broadcasting in unknown radio networks, Distrib. Comput. 15 (2002) 27-38] proved that AB is impossible, if collision detection is not available, and gave an AB algorithm using collision detection that works in time O(nD) where n is the number of nodes and D is the eccentricity of the source. Uchida et al. [J. Uchida, W. Chen, K. Wada, Acknowledged broadcasting and gossiping in ad hoc radio networks, Theoret. Comput. Sci. 377 (2007) 43-54] showed an AB algorithm without collision detection working in time O(n4/3log10/3n) for all strongly connected networks of size at least 2. In particular, it follows that the impossibility result from [B. Chlebus, L. Ga?sieniec, A. Gibbons, A. Pelc, W. Rytter, Deterministic broadcasting in unknown radio networks, Distrib. Comput. 15 (2002) 27-38] is really caused by the singleton network for which AB amounts to realize that the source is alone. We improve those two results by presenting two generic AB algorithms using a broadcasting algorithm without acknowledgement, as a procedure. For a large class of broadcasting algorithms the resulting AB algorithm has the same time complexity. Using the currently best known broadcasting algorithms, we obtain an AB algorithm with collision detection working in time O(min{nlog²D,nlognloglogn}), for arbitrary strongly connected networks, and an AB algorithm without collision detection working in time O(nlognloglogn) for all strongly connected networks of size n?2. Moreover, we show that in the model in which only nodes that already got the source message can transmit, AB is infeasible in a strong sense: for any AB algorithm there exists an infinite family of networks for which this algorithm is incorrect.     

On the behavior of stable subnetworks in non-ergodic networks with unreliable nodes

We consider Jackson networks with unreliable nodes, which randomly break down and are under repair for a random time. The network is described by a Markov process which encompasses the availability status and queue lengths vector. Ergodicity conditions for many related networks are available in the literature and can often be expressed as rate conditions. For (reliable) nodes in Jackson networks the overall arrival rate has to be strictly less than its service rate. If for some nodes this condition is violated, the network process is not ergodic. Nevertheless, it is known that in such a situation, especially in large networks, parts of the network (where the rate condition is fulfilled) in the long run stabilize. For standard Jackson networks without breakdown of nodes, the asymptotics of such stable subnetworks were derived by Goodman and Massey [J.B. Goodman, W.A. Massey, The non-ergodic Jackson network, Journal of Applied Probability 21 (1984) 860–869].In this paper, we obtain the asymptotics of Jackson networks with unreliable nodes and show that the state distribution of the stable subnetworks converges to a Jackson-type product form distribution. In such networks with breakdown and repair of nodes, in general, the ergodicity condition is more involved.Because no stationary distribution for the network exists, steady-state availability and performance evaluation is not possible. We show that instead assessment of the quality of service in the long run for the stabilizing subnetwork can be done by using limiting distributions. Additionally, we prove that time averages of cumulative rewards can be approximated by state-space averages.     

Uniform leader election protocols for radio networks

A radio network is a distributed system with no central arbiter, consisting of n radio transceivers, henceforth referred to as stations. We assume that the stations are identical and cannot be distinguished by serial or manufacturing number. The leader election problem asks to designate one of the stations as leader. In this work, we focus on single-channel, single-hop radio networks. We assume that time is slotted and all transmissions occur at slot boundaries. In each time slot, the stations transmit on the channel with some probability until, eventually, one of the stations is declared leader. A leader election protocol is said to be uniform if, in each time slot, every station transmits with the same probability. In a seminal paper, Willard (1986) presented a uniform leader election protocol for single-channel single-hop radio stations terminating in log log n+o(log log n) expected time slots. It was open for more than 15 years whether Willard's protocol featured the same time performance with "high probability." One of our main contributions is to show that, unfortunately, this is not the case. Specifically, we prove that for every parameter f∈e^O(n), in order to ensure termination with probability exceeding 1-1/f, Willard's protocol must take log log n+Ω(√f) time slots. The highlight of this work is a novel uniform leader election protocol that terminates, with probability exceeding 1-1/f, in log log n+o(log log n)+O(log f) time slots. Finally, we provide simulation results that show that our leader election protocol outperforms Willard's protocol in practice     

Consensus and collision detectors in radio networks

We consider the fault-tolerant consensus problem in radio networks with crash-prone nodes. Specifically, we develop lower bounds and matching upper bounds for this problem in single-hop radios networks, where all nodes are located within broadcast range of each other. In a novel break from existing work, we introduce a collision-prone communication model in which each node may lose an arbitrary subset of the messages sent by its neighbors during each round. This model is motivated by behavior observed in empirical studies of these networks. To cope with this communication unreliability we augment nodes with receiver-side collision detectors and present a new classification of these detectors in terms of accuracy and completeness. This classification is motivated by practical realities and allows us to determine, roughly speaking, how much collision detection capability is enough to solve the consensus problem efficiently in this setting. We consider nine different combinations of completeness and accuracy properties in total, determining for each whether consensus is solvable, and, if it is, a lower bound on the number of rounds required. Furthermore, we distinguish anonymous and non-anonymous protocols—where “anonymous” implies that devices do not have unique identifiers—determining what effect (if any) this extra information has on the complexity of the problem. In all relevant cases, we provide matching upper bounds. This work is supported by MURI–AFOSR SA2796PO 1-0000243658, USAF–AFRL #FA9550-04-1-0121, NSF Grant CCR-0121277, NSF-Texas Engineering Experiment Station Grant XS64961-CS, and DARPA F33615-01-C-1896.     

Faster communication in known topology radio networks

This paper concerns the communication primitives of broadcasting (one-to-all communication) and gossiping (all-to-all communication) in known topology radio networks, i.e., where for each primitive the schedule of transmissions is precomputed in advance based on full knowledge about the size and the topology of the network. The first part of the paper examines the two communication primitives in arbitrary graphs. In particular, for the broadcast task we deliver two new results: a deterministic efficient algorithm for computing a radio schedule of length D + O(log³ n), and a randomized algorithm for computing a radio schedule of length D + O(log² n). These results improve on the best currently known D + O(log⁴ n) time schedule due to Elkin and Kortsarz (Proceedings of the 16th ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, pp. 222–231, 2005). Later we propose a new (efficiently computable) deterministic schedule that uses 2D + Δlog n + O(log³ n) time units to complete the gossiping task in any radio network with size n, diameter D and max-degree Δ. Our new schedule improves and simplifies the currently best known gossiping schedule, requiring time , for any network with the diameter D = Ω(log ⁱ⁺⁴ n), where i is an arbitrary integer constant i ≥ 0, see Gąsieniec et al. (Proceedings of the 11th International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity, vol. 3104, pp. 173–184, 2004). The second part of the paper focuses on radio communication in planar graphs, devising a new broadcasting schedule using fewer than 3D time slots. This result improves, for small values of D, on the currently best known D + O(log³ n) time schedule proposed by Elkin and Kortsarz (Proceedings of the 16th ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, pp. 222–231, 2005). Our new algorithm should be also seen as a separation result between planar and general graphs with small diameter due to the polylogarithmic inapproximability result for general graphs by Elkin and Kortsarz (Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, vol. 3122, pp. 105–116, 2004; J. Algorithms 52(1), 8–25, 2004). The second author is supported in part by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation and by the Royal Academy of Engineering. Part of this research was performed while this author (Q. Xin) was a PhD student at The University of Liverpool.