Network Reconfiguration for Wireless Sensor Networks using
UML/MARTE Profile
Raoudha Saida
1,2
, Yessine Hadj Kacem
3
, M. S. BenSaleh
4
and Mohamed Abid
1,2
1
CES Laboratory, National Engineering School of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia
2
Digital Research center of Sfax (CRNS), Sfax, Tunisia
3
College of Computer Science, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia
4
National Electronics, Comm. and Photonics Center, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Keywords:
WSN, Reconfiguration, Energy Efficiency, MARTE, MDE.
Abstract:
The required autonomy and the growth of the complexity of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) systems give the
reconfiguration a big importance. Thus, the integration of reconfiguration scenarios (node level or network
level reconfiguration) in the development cycle of WSNs system is required to offer an efficient reaction to
environment variability. In this direction, existing model based design approaches of reconfigurable WSNs
are limited to the design of behavioral reconfiguration techniques which bring adjustment of the system’s
parameters or update some functionalities. However, network reconfiguration which presents an important
ability of networked systems for dealing with the network disconnectivity and power consumption, is still
under-explored. In this context, we propose a high level model based design of WSNs applications using the
UML/MARTE standard to specify network reconfiguration semantics. We define a new package named «NW_
Reconfiguration». A case study on water distribution network is proposed to evaluate our proposed design
approach.
1 INTRODUCTION
A WSN (Mottola and Picco, 2011) consists of a large
number of tiny, battery powered sensor nodes that inte-
grate sensing, data processing and wireless communi-
cation capabilities. WSNs have many different appli-
cation domains such as health monitoring (Al Ameen
et al., 2012), building monitoring (Benatia et al., 2014),
environmental monitoring (de Lima et al., 2010), etc.
Despite of many different abilities, sensor nodes are
prone to failure in some cases due to their limited en-
ergy resources. A WSN application needs to modify
its behavior and its architecture in order to response to
the environment requirements and manage restricted
resources. Reconfiguration is one of the interesting
topics in WSNs. Systems can evolve by either behav-
ioral or architectural reconfiguration. In this context,
reconfiguration approach in WSNs applications has
two different scenarios. The first scenario is the node
level based reconfiguration corresponding to the be-
havioral reconfiguration. The second scenario is the
network level based reconfiguration corresponding to
the architectural reconfiguration. Network level based
reconfiguration is one of the important required pro-
cess during the deployment since WSNs applications
are often deployed in inaccessible locations that re-
quire human intervention to reestablish the network
operating. Thus, reconfiguration requires to be consid-
ered in the development cycle of WSNs system with
different scenarios (node level and network level) at
different abstraction levels. To cope with the growth
of the design complexity of WSNs systems, designers
have resorted to several design methods. The most pop-
ular paradigm is the Model Driven Engineering (MDE)
(Schmidt, 2006) which permits the modeling of the be-
havioral and the structural of the system and the speci-
fication of the non functional properties such as time
constraints and energy. In particular, the Unified Mod-
eling Language (UML) profiles allow the addition of
semantics details in first steps of the design process. It
presents an attractive solution to support the whole life
cycle co-design of complex embedded systems with a
real time constraints and performance issues. In this
context, the Modeling and Analysis of Real Time and
Embedded systems (MARTE) (Group, 2011) profile
offers a rich support for the analysis and specification
of embedded systems. Proposed reconfiguration mod-
els based on MARTE profile are limited to defining
Saida, R., Kacem, Y., BenSaleh, M. and Abid, M.
Network Reconfiguration for Wireless Sensor Networks using UML/MARTE Profile.
DOI: 10.5220/0006316002030209
In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering (ENASE 2017), pages 203-209
ISBN: 978-989-758-250-9
Copyright © 2017 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
203
specifications of the behavioral reconfiguration sce-
nario which consists in adjusting system’s parameters
or updating functionalities. Indeed, there is an absence
of explicit semantics in MARTE to support the network
level based reconfiguration. Since this reconfiguration
scenario is not supported by MARTE profile, we need
new extensions in order to cover this lack and provide
more efficient design. In our work, we focus only
on the architectural reconfiguration which consists in
modifying the topology such as adding or removing
components or connections.We aim to offer a high
level model based on the UML/MARTE standard for
modeling the specifications of this important reconfig-
uration scenario required in a WSNs application. The
rest of paper is structured as follows. In Section 2, we
review some related works that address reconfigura-
bility in complex embedded systems. In Section3, we
give an overview about modeling concepts of MARTE
standard for reconfigurable WSNs systems. In section
4, we describe the adopted network reconfiguration
design strategy. In Section 5, we present in details
our proposed package to specify network reconfigu-
ration in WSNs. As a proof of concept we consider,
in Section 6, a case study about reconfigurable water
distribution networks. Finally, Section 7 concludes the
paper and presents future works.
2 RELATED WORKS
In this section, we give an overview about existing re-
configuration approaches in WSNs. Many works (Vi-
dal et al., 2011), (Quadri et al., 2009), (Krichen et al.,
2011), (Cherif et al., 2011), (Said et al., 2013), (Vidal
et al., 2010) have been carried out to the modeling
of embedded systems and particularly reconfigurable
ones. Most of the proposed approaches were interested
in dynamic and partial reconfiguration. For example,
a SoC co-design methodology based on MARTE stan-
dard is introduced in (Quadri et al., 2009). The re-
configuration behavior is defined using the specific
control semantics under GASPARD (Gamatié et al.,
2008) framework. The reconfigurable system is de-
scribed by a mode automata which is composed of a
state graph and a mode switch component.The state
graph describes the behavior of the system via state
based technique where states are connected with tran-
sitions. A mode switch component is constituted of a
set of modes. It enhances a switch functionality which
defines the following execution mode. In this work,
the developed model is transformed from model level
specifications to an executable FPGA platform. This
work introduces the modeling of hardware reconfig-
uration. In (Krichen et al., 2011), authors proposed
a model based approach which deals with the recon-
figuration issues for Distributed Real time Embedded
(DRE) systems. They introduced a solution for recon-
figuring DRE systems using a non predefined number
of configurations. A set of mode structures are used
to model the reconfigurable DRE. Mode structures are
connected with transitions. Each transition presents a
reconfiguration activity. Each node structure has var-
ious instances named modes. Every mode has a con-
figuration. The proposed configuration approach de-
scribes a configuration by a number of structured com-
ponents, relations between them and their allocation
on the execution platforms. This work has addressed
the design of software reconfiguration in embedded
systems. In (Said et al., 2013), authors proposed a
model based design of adaptive real time embedded
systems which supplies the MARTE standard with new
semantics to model application fine-grain reconfigura-
tion. This work adds extensions to MARTE profile in
order to support fine grain adaptation. The proposed
meta model describes the behavior and structure of a
reconfigurable software resource. The reconfiguration
behavior consists in a switch between a set of modes
within mode transitions. A mode can be composed of
multiple Elementary Modes connected by Elementary
Mode Transitions. Each elementary mode is described
by an output quality level and a configuration parame-
ter.
All the reviewed works have proposed high level
approaches to deal with the behavioral reconfiguration.
Although most of embedded systems, in particular
WSNs systems, have already adopted reconfiguration
techniques in their design, there still a great need for
a WSN system to integrate the architectural recon-
figuration. Indeed, the architectural reconfiguration
modeling using MARTE profile is not tackled in litera-
ture. There is no details about network reconfiguration
specifications in WSN applications. MARTE standard
offers only features to define the behavioral reconfig-
uraions of embedded systems. What makes our work
different is that we aim at defining new package based
on MARTE profile to support architectural reconfigu-
ration in WSN applications.
3 PRELIMINARIES
In this section, we describe possible reconfiguration
scenarios in WSNs application. We present then the
UML/MARTE profile capabilities to specify the recon-
figuration for embedded systems.
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3.1 Reconfiguration Scenarios in WSNs
WSNs applications require the deployment of hun-
dreds or thousands of sensor nodes in remote locations
that are often inaccessible. In order to achieve its
operating and connectivity, a wireless network sys-
tem refers to two different reconfiguration scenarios
(Rajasekaran et al., 2014); node level based reconfigu-
ration and network level based reconfiguration.
3.1.1 Node Level based Reconfiguration
The dynamic reconfiguration at node level is a required
process in WSNs applications. A sensor node adapts
its behavior to environment constraints and recovers
from broken network links. In this scenario, the hard-
ware reconfiguration and software reprogramming are
exploited. Hardware reconfiguration focuses on updat-
ing hardware platforms of sensor nodes and reprogram-
ming reconfiguration concentrates on software update,
application layer and operating systems. In (Eronu
et al., 2013), authors survey existing reconfiguration
approaches in WSN applications.
3.1.2 Network Level based Reconfiguration
Network level based reconfiguration is one of the im-
portant required process during the deployment. It
consists in modifying the topology such as removing
or adding elements or connections. Most of WSNs
are deployed in unmanageable environments where
the human intervention is required to reconfigure the
network. That’s why the network reconfiguration is re-
quired to maintain the network topology, avoid the net-
work dis-connectivity, increase the network’s longevity
and manage limited resources more efficiently. In
(Alam et al., 2014), authors proposed a network recon-
figuration technique in order to achieve the topological
control in the network. In the present paper, we are
concerned with the present reconfiguration scenario.
3.2 MARTE Capabilities for
Reconfiguration Modeling
This sub section gives an overview about UML/-
MARTE profile capabilities related to reconfiguration
issues in the modeling of embedded systems. MARTE
profile is promoted by the the Object Management
Group (OMG). This profile supports the modeling,
specification and analyzing of real time embedded sys-
tems. MARTE consists of three principal packages.
Foundation package represents the foundational con-
cepts for embedded systems modeling. It offers the
description of basic real time features such as time con-
straints, non functional properties (NFPs) and other
Figure 1: MARTE capabilities for modes and configuration
modeling.
resources. The second package, the MARTE design
model package, presents hardware and software spec-
ifications. The third package is the MARTE anal-
ysis model package which provides annotations for
generic basis of quantitative performance and schedu-
lability analysis. MARTE introduces some concepts
to design reconfigurable systems. It defines in the
Foundation package the Core Elements profile which
contains the Causality sub package that permits the
description of the dynamic behavioral modeling of
embedded systems. This profile defines the dynamic
behavioral reconfiguration in terms of modes and tran-
sitions between these modes. A mode is characterized
by a particular configuration. A transition represents
an event which applies the switch between different
modes. The dynamics between modes is described
using state machines composed of a set of modes
and modes transitions. The current MARTE propo-
sition for reconfigurable system design is illustrated
in Figure 1. MARTE standard presents only concepts
for the behavioral reconfiguration of embedded sys-
tems, however, it still lacks explicit support for the
architectural reconfiguration modeling of networked
systems. In the rest of paper, we propose a new pack-
age called «NW_Reconfiguration» package based on
UML/MARTE for the modeling of architectural recon-
figuration applied in WSNs applications.
4 PROPOSED DESIGN
METHODOLOGY
Designing an autonomous and efficient WSN archi-
tecture with satisfying the application constraints is
a complex process. Dynamic network configuration
is a great need for WSN design. In this context, we
adopt a promising approach that enables the network
Network Reconfiguration for Wireless Sensor Networks using UML/MARTE Profile
205
reconfiguration with kept of the network connectivity
and reduces the network’s power consumption. This
technique divides the network into a set of sub net-
work areas (SNAs). The proposed approach offers an
easier way to debug network problems where SNAs
are totally independents so any problem in each SNA
can easily be isolated and resolved. It enables also
the application of different topologies in each SNA
which reduces the energy consumption.This method-
ology can be expressed in two steps. In the first step,
we begin by the network formation. The network is
composed of three types of nodes: a single base station
(BS), routers and end devices. After the identification
of the BS and different nodes in the network by their
IDs, the BS station identifies, first, the router which
must have the lowest Received Signal Strength Indi-
cation (RSSI) value and the greater battery level and
others nodes will be considered as end points after a
determined time. Second, this router identifies the next
router and their associated end points in the highest
level of the same SNA based on the same algorithm.
Two topologies can be described; the tree topology
for the connection between BS and routers and the
star topology for the connection between routers and
end points. The second phase, is the dynamic network
reconfiguration in which an automatic self reconfigu-
ration done if any change occurs in the physical topol-
ogy of the network. This reconfiguration technique
depends on two major parameters: the RSSI value and
the battery level of nodes. The RSSI value specifies the
strength of the received signal. Its value decreases with
the increase in distance between the receiver and the
sender. Battery level describes the remaining energy
enables the continuity of the node’s operations. Any
modifications in these two parameters could affect in
the assignment of different task (router or end device)
to that considered mote. The network also can detect
presence of any new mote in its coverage area and
assign its role based on the two mentioned parameters.
Likewise, the remove of any node from the network
needs a dynamic reconfiguration and a replacement of
the removed node.
5 THE PROPOSED «NW_
RECONFIGURATION»
PACKAGE
In this section, we give a description of the new pro-
posed network reconfiguration package. The structure
of the «NW_ Reconfiguration» package is shown in
Figure 2. Within this proposed package, reconfigura-
tion properties and network features are declaratively
Figure 2: The NW_Reconfiguration package overview.
specified. We define a number of stereotypes to re-
late Network reconfiguration elements based on the
UML/MARTE profile. Data types from MARTE Non
Functional Properties (NFPs) are used to represent
some attributes. The stereotype «GaExecHost» from
the GQAM sub profile and the stereotype «HwCom-
municationResource» from GRM sub profile are used
to specify others semantics of classes. We detail the
modeling of different features for the network recon-
figuration in the next sub sections.
5.1 «Network» stereotype
It extends the semantics of the «Network» profile
proposed in (Ebeid et al., 2015).
Generalization:
MARTE::NW.
Associations:
Topology: Topology [2], specifies topologies of
the connection between BS and routers, and the
connection between routers and EndDevices.
sna: SubNetworkArea [1..*], the network is com-
posed of a set of SNAs.
BS: BaseStation[1], the network contains only one
base station.
Attributes:
None.
Semantics:
A network is composed of one Base Station (BS)
and a set of sub network area (SNA) containing
a definite number of nodes. It is characterized by
its topology which defines the relations between
nodes.
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5.2 «SubNetworkArea» Stereotype
Generalization:
None.
Associations:
Topology: Topology [2], specifies topologies of
BS and routers, and routers and EndDevices.
endpoint: EndPoint [1..4], each SNA contains four
end devices which are connected to the router.
router: Router [1], only one router exists in each
SNA.
Attributes:
HorizentalArea: NFP_Area, Each SNA has a defi-
nite horizontal area.
Level: integer, the SNA is composed of a set of
vertical down levels.
NbreNode: integer, each SNA contains a deter-
mine number of nodes
Semantics:
A sub network area is the environment that groups
a set of nodes. Each SNA has a determined width
and a set of levels which each level consists of 5
nodes one of each acts a router and others are end
devices.
5.3 «BaseStation» Stereotype
It inherits attributes and implementation of Node class.
Generalization:
MARTE::GQAM::GaExecHost::Node.
Associations:
None.
Attributes:
CoverageArea: integer, the coverage area of the
base station
Semantics:
One base station is considered in the network,
which is fixed and can be replaced by any other
node at run time. It is responsible for network ini-
tiation, determines the first router of every SNA,
receives data from nodes and transmits data to the
attached system.
5.4 «Topology» Stereotype
It inherits attributes and implementation of HwCom-
municationResource from GRM MARTE subprofile.
Generalization:
MARTE:: GRM:: CommunicationMedia:: Hw-
CommunicationResource
Associations:
None.
Attributes:
Entity: Node, describes the function of the node in
the network topology ( parent node, central hub)
Semantics:
Two possible topologies can exist in the network.
The tree topology for the connection between BS
and routers, and the star topology for the connec-
tion between router and End Devices.
5.5 «Node» Stereotype
It inherits attributes and implementation of GaExe-
cHost from GQAM MARTE sub profile.
Generalization:
MARTE::GQAM::GaExecHost
Associations:
batteryLevel: BatteryLevel[1..*], indicates the re-
maining energy in each sensor node.
rssi: RSSI[1..], indicates the received srenght sig-
nal indicator.
Attributes:
Batterylevel: BatteryLevel, the remaining energy
in the battery.
RSSIValue: RSSI, received srenght signal indica-
tor.
NodeId: integer, the ID of each node in the net-
work.
Semantics:
A node represents physical processing device ca-
pable of storing and executing program code. Each
node is defined in the network by an ID. This class
presents an attribute to define the battery level and
an attribute to calculate the RSSI value. They are
the two major parameters used to achieve the dy-
namic reconfiguration of the network.
Network Reconfiguration for Wireless Sensor Networks using UML/MARTE Profile
207
5.6 «BatteryLevel» Stereotype
Generalization:
MARTE::NFPs::NFP_Power
Associations:
None.
Attributes:
Threshold: NFP_Power, the minimal level of en-
ergy remaining in the node. This attribute enables
the reconfiguration of the network when the battery
level of a considered node is lower than its value.
Semantics:
A BatteryLevel is the indication of the remaining
battery life to support the mote’s operation.
5.7 «RSSI» Stereotype
Generalization:
MARTE::NFPs::NFP_Power
Associations:
None.
Attributes:
TxRxDistance: integer, the distance between the
sender and receiver nodes.
Semantics:
RSSI value presents the power of received signal
which gives information about the strength of the
received signal and it decreases with the increase
in distance between sender and receiver.
6 CASE STUDY
In order to illustrate our proposed approach for the
modeling of network reconfiguration, we consider, in
case study form, a water distribution network. Water
pipeline monitoring is one of the most interesting ap-
plications in WSNs. The implementation of sensor
network is a great solution for optimal water quality
and quantity control and leakage management in the
pipe. The architecture of the proposed water pipeline
network is described in Figure 3. The water pipeline
network is divided into several SNA that each SNA
is composed of different levels. We present in Fig-
ure 3 only one SNA with three levels. Following our
proposed approach, in the first phase, we begin by
defining a state machine representing possible roles of
existing nodes in the network. We define three states of
the nodes: ExistingNode, EndPointNode and RouterN-
ode. To do the distribution of node’s role in every
Figure 3: Water pipeline network architecture.
Figure 4: The state machine of network reconfiguration of
existing nodes.
Figure 5: The state machine of the incoming node role re-
configuration.
SNA, transitions are ensured by event triggering. For
example, the switch from ExistingNode to RouterN-
ode occcurs when the node has the lowest RSSI value
and the greater battery level. Existing nodes require
also function reconfiguration due to the battery level
reduction in order to avoid disconnectivity in the net-
work. For example, the switch from a RouterNode
to EndPointNode occurs when the battery level of the
considered router becomes lower than a certain thresh-
old and the EndPonitNode with the lowest RSSI value
in the same level becomes the RouterNode. Figure 4
shows the state machine of network reconfiguration of
existing nodes.
Additionally, the bring or the removal of nodes
in/from the coverage area of the network requires the
reconfiguration of the network and the distribution of
node’s functions. The incoming mote can be Router
or EndPoint depending on the RSSI value. If a node is
removed from the network, the BS is informed about
the missing node and replaces it. If the missing node
was acting as a router then another node from that
level automatically becomes router to maintain the
network’s connectivity at all times. We present in
Figure 5 the state machine describing the bring of the
node.
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208
7 CONCLUSION
The present paper presented a high level methodol-
ogy for modeling the architectural reconfiguration in
WSNs systems. We addressed the lack of network
reconfiguration semantics in the UML/MARTE pro-
file and we presented a new profile to specify this
reconfiguration scenario in WSNs system at high ab-
straction levels. We gave an overview of the MARTE
capabilities for the specifications of reconfigurables
WSNs which shown that the present version of the
MARTE standard is limited to the description of node
level based reconfiguration. We then presented in de-
tails our proposed profile «NW_Reconfiguration» to
characterize network reconfiguration features. The
main contribution of the present work is that it sup-
plies the MARTE profile with new semantics to design
network reconfigurability in WSNs applications. We
illustrate the practical use of our proposed with a wa-
ter distribution network. We plan in future works to
investigate the verification of Non Functional Prop-
erties (NFPs) such as energy consumption and time
constraints. We also intend to integrate the proposed
profile in an MDE-based approach for the development
of low power WSNs.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by King Abdulaziz City for
Science and Technology (KACST) and Digital Re-
search Center of Sfax (CRNS).
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