Network interrupts: supporting delay sensitive applications in low power wireless control networks

The importance in maintaining energy efficient communications in low power networks such as sensor and actuator networks is well understood. However, in recent years, a growing number of delay sensitive and interactive applications have been discovered for such networks, that are no longer purely limited to the data gathering model of sensor networks. Providing support application requiring low latency interaction in such environments without negatively affecting energy efficiency remains a challenging problem. This paper outlines the importance of this emerging class of application, discusses problems involved in supporting them in energy challenged environments, proposes a combined hardware and software mechanism based on heterogeneous wireless networking which works toward solving this problem, and goes on to evaluate this mechanism through experimental analysis. The paper concludes with a discussion of the applicability of the mechanism to typical application scenarios.