Emergence of spatial awareness in self configuring sensor networks

Abstract

Computers have come a long way since the ENIAC. The desktop that found its way into everyone's study no longer remained the bastion of computing. Radical new technologies like Sensor Networks are forcing researchers to look beyond the Von Neumann architecture and seek inspiration beyond traditional computing systems. The current work uses principles of Amorphous Computing to enable a system of homogenous sensor nodes to self-organize into a connected network with a defined topology. A state machine encodes a set of rules representing the micro-behavior of each of these nodes. Subsequently, these nodes evolve using Swarm Intelligence to locally propagate spatial information leading to the emergence of spatial awareness. It also deals with the multiple challenges faced in designing a de-centralized system to exhibit self-organization and emergence; challenges like getting a homogenous bunch of nodes endowed with identical intelligence to behave differently and overcome the information barrier to achieve self-organization and spatial awareness. © 2007 IEEE.