Changes between Version 5 and Version 6 of U-Connect

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Timestamp:
02/11/2010 01:36:22 AM (7 months ago)
Author:
arvindkr
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  • U-Connect

    v5 v6  
    77problem, whereas existing protocols like Quorum and Disco are 2-approximation algorithms. Please refer to () for details. 
    88 
    9 = Protocol Overview = 
     9== Protocol Overview == 
    1010U-Connect is an unified protocol to address both the symmetric and asymmetric asynchronous neighbor discovery problems. 
    1111The intuition behind the protocol design is as follows. Consider a protocol in which a node picks a prime number ''p'' and stays active for ''1'' slot every ''p'' slots. Any two primes are by definition relatively prime with each other. Hence, two nodes choosing different primes will discover one another. If the nodes choose the same pair of 
    1212primes, discovery can still be ensured by each node staying active for slightly longer than half the prime period ''p''. 
    1313 
    14 The protocol has been implemented on a custom designed light-weight, small and rechargeable mobile sensor-networking hardware platform called '''FireFly-Badge'''. In the implementation, the node listens at the slots that are multiples of ''p''. This operation is fundamentally ''Low 
     14The protocol has been implemented on a custom designed light-weight, small and rechargeable mobile sensor-networking hardware platform called [wiki:FireFly-Badge]. In the implementation, the node listens at the slots that are multiples of ''p''. This operation is fundamentally ''Low 
    1515Power Listening'' (LPL), where the listen period is 
    1616''p'' slots.  The node transmits continuously for ''{p + 1}/2'' slots for every hyper-cycle. This periodic transmission 
     
    1919to spread the packet transmission over multiple slots, thereby enabling much lower slot sizes. The operation is depicted in the figure below. 
    2020 
    21 [[Image(operation.png)]] 
     21[[Image(operation.png, 300px)]] 
     22 
     23== Interoperability == 
     24In applications where the mobile nodes use infrastructure support, 
     25interoperability of the neighbor discovery protocol with the MAC 
     26protocol used by the infrastructure nodes for data flows is a desired feature. 
     27For example, the networks deployed as part of Sensor Andrew use BMAC as 
     28the MAC protocol. 
     29U-Connect achieves interoperability with LPL-based MAC protocols such as 
     30B-MAC by transmitting for duration equal to BMAC's check-period, whenever a packet needs to be sent to an infrastructure node. Also U-Connect will be able to receive any BMAC packet 
     31as long as the listen period of U-Connect is less than the 
     32check period used by BMAC. 
     33 
     34== Slot Non-Alignment == 
     35In practice, slots will rarely be aligned since nodes run independently 
     36and do not adjust for clock skews or set up a global time-reference. We 
     37need to ensure that two nodes will discover each other regardless of how 
     38their slots overlap. In U-Connect, when in LPT mode of operation, 
     39an unmodulated  preamble is transmitted for $\rho$ consecutive slots. 
     40The actual data, which is the node id in our implementation, is sent at the end of this 
     41preamble. Any other node that wakes up during this LPT will find the channel 
     42busy and will receive the data at the end of the preamble. When this 
     43happens, both nodes will attempt to transmit at the same time resulting 
     44in a collision. To avoid collisions in our protocol a CCA check is done before transmitting. 
     45Also, since the probability of two nodes being exactly phase-aligned to come in contact is low, we have not taken any explicit measures to overcome this.