An adaptive fault identification protocol for an emergency/rescue-based wireless and mobile ad-hoc network

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the fault diagnosis problem in MANETs, i.e. the problem of identifying faulty hosts by fault-free ones. The diagnosis scheme that we consider is that based on the comparison approach, where hosts transmit test tasks to their neighbors and the outcomes are compared. By comparing the received outcomes fault-free hosts are able to diagnose the fault status of the network. We propose an adaptive distributed diagnosis algorithm that uses an adaptable spanning tree to disseminate the local diagnosis views throughout the ad-hoc network. The protocol allows all fault-free hosts to correctly identify all faulty ones, and it constitutes a viable addition to existing self-diagnosis protocols.