Cross-Layer Collaborative In-Network Processing in Multihop Wireless Sensor Networks

Emerging Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) applications demand considerable computation capacity for in-network processing. To achieve the required processing capacity, cross-layer collaborative in-network processing among sensors emerges as a promising solution: Sensors do not only process information at the application layer, but also synchronize their communication activities to exchange partially processed data for parallel processing. However, scheduling computation and communication events is a challenging problem in WSNs due to limited resource availability and shared communication medium. In this work, an application-independent task mapping and scheduling solution in multihop homogeneous WSNs, Multihop Task Mapping and Scheduling (MTMS), is presented that provides real-time guarantees. Using our proposed application model, the multihop channel model, and the communication scheduling algorithm, computation tasks and associated communication events are scheduled simultaneously. The Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS) algorithm is presented to further optimize energy consumption. Simulation results show significant performance improvements compared with existing mechanisms in terms of minimizing energy consumption subject to delay constraints.