Debugging Wireless Sensor Networks with Incremental Snapshots

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of cheap nodes equipped with sensors and radio, able to pass data and control devices. Debugging WSNs is an open problem because they consist of several independent systems without advanced debugging capabilities, usually deployed in unprotected environments. Simulators are often used to reproduce real networks; with the extra capability of being able to accelerate or slow down the time and inspect the internal state of every node in the network. Often an important condition for being able to x a bug is the possibility of reproducing it consistently, identifying the causes and conditions that trigger the problem; however, it can happen that some conditions will present themselves only in the real network, and possibly in a way that appears totally random, making the implementation of a solution extremely time consuming. In this thesis we present a tool able to collect events from a network and replay them in a simulator. We introduce the design of the tool, show real world applications and evaluate the performances.