FlexCup: A Flexible and Efficient Code Update Mechanism for Sensor Networks

Abstract. The ability to update the program code installed on wireless sensor nodes plays an import role in the highly dynamic environments sensor networks are often deployed in. Such code update mechanisms should support flexible reconfiguration and adaptation of the sensor nodes but should also operate in an energy and time efficient manner. In this paper, we present FlexCup, a flexible code update mechanism that minimizes the energy consumed on each sensor node for the installation of arbitrary code changes. We describe two different versions of FlexCup and show, using a precise hardware emulator, that our mechanism is able to perform updates up to 8 times faster than related code update algorithms found in the literature, while consuming only an eighth of the energy.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: EWSN
• Authors: Andreas Lachenmann, Daniel Minder, Kurt Rothermel, Matthias Gauger, Olga Saukh, Pedro José Marrón
• Keywords: Code Update Algorithms, Code Update Mechanism, EWSN 2006, Such Code Update, Wireless Networks