Efficient Operation in Sensor and Actor Networks Inspired by Cellular Signaling Cascades

The investigation and the development of self-organizing systems are especially needed for operation and control in massively distributed systems such as Sensor and Actor Net- works (SANETs). The main issues addressed by self-organi- zation techniques are scalability, network lifetime, and real- time support. In the literature, biological principles are of- ten cited as inspirations for technical solutions, especially in the domain of self-organization. This concept already re- sulted in a good number of solutions with signifcant impact such as ant-based routing and immune system inspired net- work security solutions. In this paper, another specifc bi- ological feld is investigated: cellular signaling cascades for event-specifc reaction initiated by individual cells in collab- oration with their direct neighbors. Information between cells are transmitted via proteins and result in the cascade of protein{protein or protein{DNA interactions to produce a specifc cellular answer, e.g. the activation of cells or the transmission of mediators. These processes are programmed in every individual cell and lead to a coordinated reaction on a higher organization platform. We transferred these mech- anisms to operation and control in SANETs. In particular, a rule-based processing scheme relying on the main concepts of cellular signaling cascades has been developed. It is re- lying on simple local rules and providing problem specifc reaction such as local actuation control and data manipulation. We describe this Rule-based Sensor Network (RSN) technology and demonstrate comparative simulation results that show the feasibility of our approach.