Falko Dressler, Gerhard Fuchs, Sebastien Truchat, Zheng Yao, Zengyu Lu, and Holger Marquardt

Abstract

The heterogeneity and dynamics in terms of hardware and software configurations are steadily increasing in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Therefore, software management is becoming one of the most prominent challenges in this domain. This applies especially for on-demand updates for improved redundancy or adaptive task allocation. Methodologies for efficient software management in WSN need to be investigated for operating and maintaining large-scale sensor networks. We developed a profile-based software management scheme that consists of a dynamic profile-matching algorithm to identify current hardware and software configurations, an on-demand code generation module, and mechanisms for dynamic network-centric reprogramming of sensor nodes. We exploit the advantages of robot-based reconfiguration and reprogramming methods for efficient and secure software management. The mobile robot system is employed for decision processes and to store the source code repository. The developed methods are depicted in detail. Additionally, we demonstrate the applicability and advantages based on a scenario that we implemented in our lab.