A Framework for Network Mode Control in Wireless Sensor Networks

In many areas of pervasive networking, e.g. assisted living, intelligent house, or smart office environments, wireless sensor networks (WSN) can be used to efficiently monitor, control, or serve as alarm systems. Depending on the context, the network may be used for data collection by different applications with widely different requirements, e.g. energy efficient monitoring or highly reactive alarm systems. This paper introduces the new concept of network modes, which describe different operational modes of a WSN to serve different applications in an optimal way. We argue that there are a few basic modes, i.e. energy mode, fast delivery and redundant mode, which can be used for various applications. In this way, the applications only specify their needs, but do not need to care about the detailed network operation. We present a generic mode control layer, which can be used with different mode implementations and also performs adaptive mode switching depending on requirements of the target mode, e.g. energy efficient switching or fast switching. We also show how different distributed algorithm for mode implementation and mode switching can be used in the framework. In a case study we prove the feasibility and demonstrate the functionality of our framework.