Local Algorithms for Robust Mission Realization in Large-Scale Disconnected Networks

Robustness and reliability in large-scale sensor networks present a triple challenge. First, the large scale (possibly compounded by the use of unreliable communication) makes failures -- transient and permanent -- unavoidable. Second, the difficulty of deploying such systems, especially in challenging environments, makes it next to impossible to replace failed nodes or rearrange surviving nodes after each failure. Third, the limited resources and capabilities of most sensor nodes prohibit elaborate, global/centralized approaches, especially in view of the potentially large number of nodes in the network. In this paper, we propose simple mechanisms to alleviate the effect of node failure in large-scale disconnected networks and show that beneficial global network properties can emerge from local rules achievable by simple nodes.