Stream: Low Overhead Wireless Reprogramming for Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless reprogramming of a sensor network is useful for uploading new code or for changing the functionality of existing code. Through the process, a node should remain receptive to future code updates because reprogramming may be done multiple times during the node's lifetime. Existing reprogramming protocols, such as Deluge, achieve this by bundling the reprogramming protocol and the application as one program image, thereby increasing the overall size of the image which is transferred through the network. This increases both time and energy required for network reprogramming. We present a protocol called Stream that mitigates the problem by significantly reducing the size of the program image. Using the facility of having multiple code images on a node and switching between them, Stream pre-installs the reprogramming protocol as one image and the application program equipped with the ability to listen to new code updates as the second image. For a sample application, Stream reduces the size of the program image by 10 pages (48 packets/page) compared to Deluge. Stream is implemented on the Mica2 nodes and we conduct testbed and simulation experiments to show the reduction in energy and reprogramming time of Stream compared to Deluge.