Resource Allocation and Resource Leveling in Heterogeneous SANET Environments

Actual research projects in the field of wireless communication systems focus on distributed, heterogeneous architectures for advanced Sensor-Actor-Networks (SANETs). Each subsystem provides specific capabilities for measuring or manipulating its environment. At the same time, a huge amount of sensor, status and control data has to be transmitted over different network interfaces and communication standards. During the runtime, the number and the quality of communication channels is changing dynamically. Especially in wireless multi-hop scenarios with several radio standards, the maintenance and the balancing of stable communication paths is critical. In this context, we present a cross-layer resource leveling approach in the domain of heterogeneous SANET environments. We are able to manage communication resources in an efficient and lightweight way. The introduced Resource Management Unit (RMU) ensures a cooperative communication and provides features for an on-demand channel reallocation. Hence, on lower layers we developed a real-time radio standard integration concept and use respective routing algorithms with adaptive multi-standard, multi-interface metrics. For proof of concept, we designed and implemented an evaluation platform. Two different test scenarios focus on the dynamic channel reallocation capabilities as well as the real-time protocol conversion features between different communication technologies. The measured results of the test bed configurations clarify the necessity and the feasibility of a dynamic resource leveling concept in heterogeneous WSN/SANET environments.