Distributed Path Reconfiguration and Data Forwarding in Industrial IoT Networks

TL;DR

This paper presents a distributed, energy-efficient method for reconfiguring data paths in industrial IoT networks to maintain functionality after failures, reducing reliance on centralized control.

Contribution

It introduces a novel local reconfiguration algorithm for industrial IoT networks that improves resilience and efficiency compared to existing centralized approaches.

Findings

Enhanced energy efficiency in data forwarding

Higher data delivery success rate after failures

Insights for further performance improvements

Abstract

In today's typical industrial environments, the computation of the data distribution schedules is highly centralised. Typically, a central entity configures the data forwarding paths so as to guarantee low delivery delays between data producers and consumers. However, these requirements might become impossible to meet later on, due to link or node failures, or excessive degradation of their performance. In this paper, we focus on maintaining the network functionality required by the applications after such events. We avoid continuously recomputing the configuration centrally, by designing an energy efficient local and distributed path reconfiguration method. Specifically, given the operational parameters required by the applications, we provide several algorithmic functions which locally reconfigure the data distribution paths, when a communication link or a network node fails. We compare our method through simulations to other state of the art methods and we demonstrate performance gains in terms of energy consumption and data delivery success rate as well as some emerging key insights which can lead to further performance gains.