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Self-Healing
Networks
T
he obvious advantage to wireless communication over wired is,
as they say in the real estate business, location, location, location.
Individuals and industries choose wireless because it allows flex-
ibility of location—whether that means mobility, portability, or
just ease of installation at a fixed point. The challenge of wireless
communication is that, unlike the mostly error-free transmission
environments provided by cables, the environment that wireless commu-
nications travel through is unpredictable. Environmental radio-frequency
(RF) “noise” produced by powerful motors, other wireless devices, micro-
waves—and even the moisture content in the air—can make wireless com-
munication unreliable.
Despite early problems in overcoming this pitfall, the newest develop-
ments in self-healing wireless networks are solving the problem by capital-
izing on the inherent broadcast properties of RF transmission. The changes
made to the network architectures are resulting in new methods of applica-
tion design for this medium. Ultimately, these new types of networks are
both changing how we think about and design for current applications and
introducing the possibility of entirely new applications.
FIG 1
AODV is a combination of dynamic and single-path routing,
lost network performance,
using the cost-based gradients of dynamic routing to discover
developers need to focus
routes. Thereafter, it suppresses redundant routes by choosing a
on designing extremely ef-
specific “next-hop” node for a particular destination.
ficient applications—those
FIG 3
is in place. Unfortunately, originator to destination nodes. Having multiple sets of
this redundant traffic routes adds memory cost and network traffic, but results in
control adds overhead and better reliability and faster message delivery.
reduces network capacity;
when the selection of a
self-healing network is already squeezing network capac- in a distributed way often requires no hardware changes.
ity, developers designing these networks should question Some types of processing are cheaper than sending data
the need to directly control access to it. These kinds of in self-healing networks—even the simplest devices can
trade-off choices are the hallmark of design for self-heal- compare data against thresholds, so it is possible to limit
ing networks. messaging to cases where there is something interesting
One especially useful strategy for avoiding unnecessary to say. Rather than a periodic temperature report, for ex-
overhead is to decentralize tasks within the network. Digi- ample, a temperature-sensing device can be programmed
tal communications assume some degree of processing to report “exceptions,” conditions under which the
power at each node, and using that power to handle tasks temperature falls outside a prescribed range. This kind of
that makes these applications possible. sional experience in creative production with
the MIT Media Laboratory.
THE CHALLENGES CLIFF BOWMAN is an applications engineer at
Self-healing networks are designed to be robust even Ember Corporation. He has been developing
in environments where individual links are unreliable, embedded solutions for industrial, defense,
making them ideal for dealing with unexpected cir- and automotive applications since 1991.
cumstances, such as public safety systems. The dynamic © 2003 ACM 1542-7730/03/0500 $5.00