Programming Sensor Networks Made Easy

The designer of a sensor network protocol needs to address several low-level details such as message collisions, message losses, and resource limitations. Also, the designer needs to solve several high-level problems such as routing, leader election, and diffusing computation that are already considered in distributed systems and traditional networking. Therefore, to simplify the design of sensor network protocols, in this paper, we propose ProSe, a programming tool for sensor networks that enables the following: (i) specify programs in simple abstract models considered in distributed systems literature while hiding low-level details, (ii) reuse existing algorithms in the context of sensor networks, and (iii) automate code generation and deployment. Furthermore, ProSe helps in rapid prototyping and quick deployment of sensor networks. Finally, ProSe enables the transition where protocols are designed by domain experts rather than experts in sensor networks.