Abstract
S^2DB: A Novel Simulation-Based Debugger for Sensor Network Applications
by: Ye Wen and Rich Wolski
Abstract:
Sensor network computing can be characterized as resource-contrained distributed computing using unreliable, low bandwidth communication. This combination of characteristics poses significant software development and maintenance challenges. Effective and efficient debugging tools, such as TOSSIM, EmStar, ATEMU and Avrora, provide useful debugging support, but not with the fidelity, scale and functionality that we believe are sufficient to meet the needs of the net generation of applications.
In this paper, we propose a debugger, called S^2DB, based on a distributed full system sensor network simulator with high fidelity and scalable performance, DiSenS. By exploiting the potential of DiSenS as a scalable full system simulator, S^2DB extends conventional debugging methods
by adding novel device level, program source level, group level, and network level debugging abstractions. The performance evaluation shows that all these debugging features introduce overhead that is generally less than 10% into the simulator and thus making S^2DB an efficient and effective
debugging tool for sensor networks.
Keywords:
sensor network, debugging, simulation
Date:
February 2006
Document: 2006-01
