Abstract
While several important problems in the field of sensor networks have already been tackled, there is still a wide range of challenging, open problems that merit further attention. We present five theoretical problems that we believe to be essential to understanding sensor networks. The goal of this work is both to summarize the current state of research and, by calling attention to these fundamental problems, to spark interest in the networking community to attend to these and related problems in sensor networks.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Wan, P.J., Calinescu, G., Li, X.Y., Frieder, O.: Minimum-Energy Broadcast Routing in Static Ad Hoc Wireless Networks. In: INFOCOM. Proc. of the 20th Annual Joint Conf. of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (2001)
Ambühl, C.: An Optimal Bound for the MST Algorithm to Compute Energy Efficient Broadcast Trees in Wireless Networks. In: Caires, L., Italiano, G.F., Monteiro, L., Palamidessi, C., Yung, M. (eds.) ICALP 2005. LNCS, vol. 3580, Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Alon, N., Bar-Noy, A., Linial, N., Peleg, D.: A Lower Bound for Radio Broadcast. J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 43, 290–298 (1991)
Czumaj, A., Rytter, W.: Broadcasting Algorithms in Radio Networks with Unknown Topology. J. Algorithms 60, 115–143 (2006)
Peleg, D.: Time Efficient Broadcasting in Radio Networks: A Review. In: Janowski, T., Mohanty, H. (eds.) ICDCIT 2007. LNCS, vol. 4882, Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Bose, P., Morin, P., Stojmenovic, I., Urrutia, J.: Routing with Guaranteed Delivery in ad hoc Wireless Networks. In: DIAL-M. Proc. of the 3rd Int. Workshop on Discrete Algorithms and Methods for Mobile Computing and Communications (1999)
Kuhn, F., Wattenhofer, R., Zollinger, A.: Worst-Case Optimal and Average-Case Efficient Geometric Ad-Hoc Routing. In: MOBIHOC. Proc. of the 4th ACM Int. Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (2003)
Durocher, S., Kirkpatrick, D., Narayanan, L.: On Routing with Guaranteed Delivery in Three-Dimensional Ad Hoc Wireless Networks. Personal communication (2007)
Gupta, P., Kumar, P.R.: The Capacity of Wireless Networks. IEEE Trans. Information Theory 46, 388–404 (2000)
Moscibroda, T., Wattenhofer, R.: The Complexity of Connectivity in Wireless Networks. In: INFOCOM. Proc. of the 25th Annual Joint Conf. of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (2006)
Moscibroda, T., Wattenhofer, R., Zollinger, A.: Topology Control Meets SINR: The Scheduling Complexity of Arbitrary Topologies. In: MOBIHOC. Proc. of the 7th ACM Int. Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (2006)
Moscibroda, T., Oswald, Y.A., Wattenhofer, R.: How Optimal are Wireless Scheduling Protocols? In: INFOCOM. Proc. of the 26th Annual Joint Conf. of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (2007)
Moscibroda, T.: The Worst-Case Capacity of Wireless Sensor Networks. In: IPSN. Proc. of the 6th Int. Conf. on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (2007)
Chafekar, D., Kumar, V.S.A., Marathe, M., Pathasarathy, S., Srinivasan, A.: Cross-Layer Latency Minimization in Wireless Networks with SINR constraints. In: MOBIHOC. Proc. of the 8th ACM Int. Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (2007)
Goussevskaia, O., Oswald, Y.A., Wattenhofer, R.: Complexity in Geometric SINR. In: MOBIHOC. Proc. of the 8th ACM Int. Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (2007)
Wattenhofer, R., Li, L., Bahl, P., Wang, Y.M.: Distributed Topology Control for Power Efficient Operation in Multihop Wireless Ad Hoc Networks. In: INFOCOM. Proc. of the 20th Annual Joint Conf. of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (2001)
Santi, P.: Topology Control in Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks. Wiley, Chichester (2005)
Li, X.Y., Song, W.Z., Wan, W.: A Unified Energy Efficient Topology for Unicast and Broadcast. In: MOBICOM. Proc. of the 11th Int. Conf. on Mobile Computing and Networking (2005)
Damian, M., Pandit, S., Pemmaraju, S.: Local Approximation Schemes for Topology Control. In: PODC. Proc. of the 25th Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (2006)
Burkhart, M., von Rickenbach, P., Wattenhofer, R., Zollinger, A.: Does Topology Control Reduce Interference? In: MobiHoc. Proc. of the 5th ACM Int. Symposium on Mobile Ad-hoc Networking and Computing (2004)
Moaveni-Nejad, K., Li, X.Y.: Low-Interference Topology Control for Wireless Ad-hoc Networks. Ad Hoc & Sensor Wireless Networks: An International Journal 1 (2005)
Johansson, T., Carr-Motyčková, L.: Reducing Interference in Ad hoc Networks through Topology Control. In: DIALM-POMC. Proc. of the 3rd ACM Joint Workshop on Foundations of Mobile Computing (2005)
Benkert, M., Gudmundsson, J., Haverkort, H., Wolff, A.: Constructing Interference-Minimal Networks. Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications (2007)
Fussen, M., Wattenhofer, R., Zollinger, A.: Interference Arises at the Receiver. In: WIRELESSCOM. Proc. of the Int. Conf. on Wireless Networks, Communications, and Mobile Computing (2005)
von Rickenbach, P., Schmid, S., Wattenhofer, R., Zollinger, A.: A Robust Interference Model for Wireless Ad-Hoc Networks. In: WMAN. Proc. of the 5th Int. Workshop on Algorithms for Wireless, Mobile, Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks (2005)
Prakash, R.: Unidirectional Links Prove Costly in Wireless Ad-hoc Networks. In: DIALM. Proc. of the 3rd Int. Workshop on Discrete Algorithms and Methods for Mobile Computing and Communications (1999)
Halldórsson, M.M., Tokuyama, T.: Minimizing Interference of a Wireless Ad-Hoc Network in a Plane. In: ALGOSENSORS. Proc. of the 2nd Int. Workshop on Algorithmic Aspects of Wireless Sensor Networks (2006)
Moscibroda, T., Wattenhofer, R.: Minimizing Interference in Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks. In: DIALM-POMC. Proc. of the 3rd ACM Joint Workshop on Foundations of Mobile Computing (2005)
Karp, R.: Reducibility Among Combinatorial Problems. J. ACM 45, 634–652 (1998)
Masuyama, S., Ibaraki, T., Haseqawa, T.: The Computational Complexity of the M-Center Problems in the Plane. Trans. IECE Japan E64, 57–64 (1981)
Clark, B.N., Colbourn, C.J., Johnson, D.S.: Unit Disk Graphs. Discrete Math. 86, 165–177 (1990)
Feige, U.: A Threshold of ln n for Approximating Set Cover. J. ACM 45, 634–652 (1998)
Marathe, M., Breu, H., Ravi, H., Rosenkrantz, D.: Simple Heuristics for Unit Disk Graphs. Networks 25, 59–68 (1995)
Ambühl, C., Erlebach, T., Mihalak, M., Nunkesser, M.: Constant-Factor Approximation for Minimum-Weight (Connected) Dominating Sets in Unit Disk Graphs. In: APPROX. Proc. of the 9th Int. Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems (2006)
Nieberg, T., Hurink, J.L.: A PTAS for the Minimum Dominating Set Problem in Unit Disk Graphs. Memorandum 1732, Universiteit Twente, Dep’t of Applied Mathematics (2004)
Dubhashi, D., Mei, A., Panconesi, A., Radhakrishnan, J., Srinivasan, A.: Constant-Factor Approximation for Minimum-Weight (Connected) Dominating Sets in Unit Disk Graphs. In: APPROX. Proc. of the 9th Int. Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems (2006)
Luby, M.: A Simple Parallel Algorithm for the Maximal Independent Set Problem. SIAM Journal on Computing 15, 1036–1053 (1986)
Jia, L., Rajaraman, R., Suel, R.: An Efficient Distributed Algorithm for Constructing Small Dominating Sets. In: PODC. Proc. of the 20th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (2001)
Kuhn, F., Wattenhofer, R.: Constant-Time Distributed Dominating Set Approximation. In: PODC. Proc. of the 22nd ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (2003)
Kuhn, F., Moscibroda, T., Wattenhofer, R.: The Price of Being Near-Sighted. In: SODA. Proc. of the 17th ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (2006)
Kuhn, F., Moscibroda, T., Nieberg, T., Wattenhofer, R.: Local Approximation Schemes for Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks. In: DIALM-POMC. Proc. of the 3rd ACM Joint Workshop on Foundations of Mobile Computing (2005)
Kuhn, F., Moscibroda, T., Wattenhofer, R.: On the Locality of Bounded Growth. In: PODC. Proc. of the 24th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (2005)
Linial, N.: Locality in Distributed Graph Algorithms. SIAM Journal on Computing 21, 193–201 (1992)
Kuhn, F., Moscibroda, T., Nieberg, T., Wattenhofer, R.: Fast Deterministic Distributed Maximal Independent Set Computation on Growth-Bounded Graphs. In: Fraigniaud, P. (ed.) DISC 2005. LNCS, vol. 3724, Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Gfeller, B., Vicari, E.: A Randomized Distributed Algorithm for the Maximal Independent Set Problem in Growth-Bounded Graphs. In: PODC. Proc. of the 26th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (2007)
Savvides, A., Han, C.C., Strivastava, M.B.: Dynamic Fine-Grained Localization in Ad-Hoc Networks of Sensors. In: MOBICOM. Proc. of the 7th Annual Int. Conf. on Mobile Computing and Networking (2001)
O’Dell, R., Wattenhofer, R.: Theoretical Aspects of Connectivity-based Multi-hop Positioning. Theoretical Computer Science 344, 47–68 (2005)
Breu, H., Kirkpatrick, D.: Unit Disk Graph Recognition is NP-hard. Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications 9, 3–24 (1998)
Kuhn, F., Moscibroda, T., Wattenhofer, R.: Unit Disk Graph Approximation. In: DIALM-POMC. Proc. of the 2nd ACM Joint Workshop on Foundations of Mobile Computing (2004)
Aspnes, J., Goldenberg, D., Yang, Y.R.: On the Computational Complexity of Sensor Network Localization. In: ALGOSENSORS. Proc. of the 1st Int. Workshop on Algorithmic Aspects of Wireless Sensor Networks (2004)
Bruck, J., Gao, J., Jiang, A.: Localization and Routing in Sensor Networks By Local Angle Information. In: MOBIHOC. Proc. of the 6th ACM Int. Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (2005)
Moscibroda, T., O’Dell, R., Wattenhofer, M., Wattenhofer, R.: Virtual Coordinates for Ad hoc and Sensor Networks. In: DIALM-POMC. Proc. of the 2nd ACM Joint Workshop on Foundations of Mobile Computing (2004)
Vempala, S.: Random Projection: A New Approach to VLSI Layout. In: FOCS. Proc. of the 39th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (1998)
Pemmaraju, S., Pirwani, I.A.: Good Quality Virtual Realization of Unit Ball Graphs. In: ESA. Proc. of the 15th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (2007)
Priyantha, N.B., Balakrishnan, H., Demaine, E.D., Teller, S.: Anchor-free Distributed Localization in Sensor Networks. Technical Report TR-892, MIT, LCS (2003)
Gotsman, C., Koren, Y.: Distributed Graph Layout for Sensor Networks. In: Pach, J. (ed.) GD 2004. LNCS, vol. 3383, Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Srikanth, T.K., Toueg, S.: Optimal Clock Synchronization. J. ACM 34, 626–645 (1987)
Fan, R., Lynch, N.: Gradient Clock Synchronization. In: PODC. Proc. of the 23rd Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (2004)
Fan, R., Chakraborty, I., Lynch, N.: Clock Synchronization for Wireless Networks. In: Higashino, T. (ed.) OPODIS 2004. LNCS, vol. 3544, Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Locher, T., Wattenhofer, R.: Oblivious Gradient Clock Synchronization. In: DISC. Proc. of the 20th Int. Symposium on Distributed Computing (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Locher, T., von Rickenbach, P., Wattenhofer, R. (2007). Sensor Networks Continue to Puzzle: Selected Open Problems. In: Rao, S., Chatterjee, M., Jayanti, P., Murthy, C.S.R., Saha, S.K. (eds) Distributed Computing and Networking. ICDCN 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4904. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77444-0_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77444-0_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-77443-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-77444-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)