Quasi-static Centralized Rate Allocation for Sensor Networks

— Rate control for congestion mitigation and avoidance has received significant attention in the sensor networks literature. Existing rate control schemes dynamically assign rates in a distributed manner. In this paper, we take a step back and ask: is a near-optimal quasi-static centralized rate allocation even feasible for wireless sensor networks? Intuition would suggest otherwise, since wireless conditions vary dynamically, and optimal centralized rate allocation is known to be computationally intractable. Surprisingly, however, we find that, quasi-static centralized rate allocation performs well at time-scales of tens of minutes on a 40-node testbed. Our approach relies on a relatively simple, lightweight rate allocation heuristic that uses topology and loss rate information, and adapts at relatively long time-scales to channel variability. Extensive experiments on a 40-node wireless testbed show that sensor nodes achieve a goodput very close to their allocated rate, even in ha...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: SECON
• Authors: Fang Bian, Sumit Rangwala, Ramesh Govindan
• Keywords: Centralized Rate Allocation, Quasi-static Centralized Rate, Rate Control, SECON 2007