A domain specific visual language for modeling power-aware reliability in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Reliability is an attribute that appears in all quality models, so it is important to take it into account when developing any kind of system. Its evaluation at latter stages of the software development may force the re-engineering of important parts of the system, something very costly. This is why it should be raised to the system design phase. Among the systems where reliability is a crucial issue, some wireless sensor network (WSN) protocols aim to extend the networks lifetime as much as possible, so a more reliable network will live longer. Following a model-driven engineering (MDE) approach, we propose the use of domain specific visual languages (DSVLs) to model the reliability of systems based on components by means of in-place behavioral rules and by modeling how the state of the components changes. We have developed as well a DSVL for modeling and analyzing reliability properties of a WSN protocol based on local information, namely directional source-aware routing protocol (DSAP).