Redesigning quorum system techniques for sensor networks

Quorum systems are well-known techniques designed to enhance the performance of distributed systems, such as to reduce the access cost per operation, to balance the load, and to improve the system scalability. We analyze quorum techniques in the specific context of sensor networks and energy conservation, and show why quorum systems designed for wired networks and their metrics fail to address the challenges introduced by sensor networks. We redefine quorum metrics such as access cost, load balance and capacity, in a way that takes into account the limitations and the characteristics of sensor networks, and discuss some energy-efficient design strategy. In addition, we propose a family of energy-efficient quorum systems and a particular construction, called Regional Quorum system (RQ), which reduces the quorum access cost. Finally, we propose and analyze an energy-efficient data diffusion protocol built on top of the RQ system, that improves energy consumption by reducing message transmissions and collisions.

D.Tulone, E. D. Demaine. Redesigning quorum systems for wireless sensor networks. Submitted to conference.