Distributed Sensing with Fault-Tolerant Resource Reallocation for Disaster Area Assessment

Abstract

As distributed systems increase, so do the challenges of operating them in a reliable and safe manner. In addition to reliability concerns, distributed and networked embedded systems face natural impediments to their operation, such as radio-frequency interference with their wireless communication systems, or malicious attacks designed to compromise the operation of a system. Both of these types of interference threaten timely system operation; in cases where hard real-time deadlines are critical to both task execution and the overall goals of the system, such interference could lead to devastating consequences. To address that threat, the research work presented in this dissertation aims to provide a real-time, lightweight solution to allow distributed systems to identify interference vulnerabilities, assess performance degradation, and circumvent security breaches. A specific application, namely disaster area assessment, is highlighted to demonstrate the feasibility of the technologies and methods developed during this dissertation. The author believes that unique life-saving benefits can be provided by integrating fault-tolerant distributed sensing mechanisms with disaster area assessment methods. These can be used to identify damage on the ground following localized weather phenomena such as tornadoes, microbursts, and straight-line winds. In particular, the dissertation will focus on fault-tolerance within the scope of mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs).

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA553642

Entities

People

  • Adrian P. Lauf

Organizations

  • Vanderbilt University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Autonomy
  • Cyber
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Computer Networks
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Control Systems
  • Digital Communications
  • Instruction Set Architecture
  • Lithium Ion Polymer Batteries
  • Mesh Networks
  • Multiple Access
  • Network Architecture
  • Network Protocols
  • Network Topology
  • Radio Communications
  • Wireless Communications

Readers

  • Computer Networking
  • Emergency Management and Homeland Security.
  • Parallel and Distributed Computing.