Distributed sensing with fault-tolerant resource reallocation for disaster area assessment

Abstract

This project is aimed at developing a system allowing Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) to perform distributed tasks within a fault-tolerant context, called the Distributed Apt Resource Transference System (DARTS). By creating a method by which individual, wirelessly-connected nodes can identify and respond to malicious intrusions and operational failures such as radio interference, DARTS provides a way to increase system uptime by allowing redundant resources owned by nodes to be reallocated to a task that would otherwise need to be suspended due to node failure. This work also attempts to understand the relationship between the efficiency of the system itself and differing network densities, defined by the geometric organization of nodes. Lastly, by integrating DARTS into the application of distributed disaster area assessment involving multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the speedup (up to 6-fold increase) and reduction in number of reallocation request messages (79% reduction) has shown that DARTS is a viable way to perform an accurate and timely survey of tornado storm damage using a distributed aerial platform.