research-article

Detecting Faulty Nodes with Data Errors for Wireless Sensor Networks

Authors:

Tian HeAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN), Volume 10, Issue 3

Article No.: 40, Pages 1 - 27

https://doi.org/10.1145/2594773

Published: 06 May 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) promise researchers a powerful instrument for observing sizable phenomena with fine granularity over long periods. Since the accuracy of data is important to the whole system's performance, detecting nodes with faulty readings is an essential issue in network management. As a complementary solution to detecting nodes with functional faults, this article, proposes FIND, a novel method to detect nodes with data faults that neither assumes a particular sensing model nor requires costly event injections. After the nodes in a network detect a natural event, FIND ranks the nodes based on their sensing readings as well as their physical distances from the event. FIND works for systems where the measured signal attenuates with distance. A node is considered faulty if there is a significant mismatch between the sensor data rank and the distance rank. Theoretically, we show that average ranking difference is a provable indicator of possible data faults. FIND is extensively evaluated in simulations and two test bed experiments with up to 25 MicaZ nodes. Evaluation shows that FIND has a less than 5% miss detection rate and false alarm rate in most noisy environments.

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Cited By

Muhammad ALi FKhan ZKhan FKhan JKhan S(2025)Exploration of contemporary modernization in UWSNs in the context of localization including opportunities for future research in machine learning and deep learningScientific Reports10.1038/s41598-025-89916-y15:1Online publication date: 15-Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-89916-y
Li GSheng H(2025)Hybrid Models for Forecasting Allocative Localization Error in Wireless Sensor NetworksInternational Journal of Cognitive Computing in Engineering10.1016/j.ijcce.2025.01.0086(333-350)Online publication date: Dec-2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcce.2025.01.008
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Index Terms

Detecting Faulty Nodes with Data Errors for Wireless Sensor Networks
1. Networks
  1. Network services

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks

ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks Volume 10, Issue 3

April 2014

509 pages

ISSN:1550-4859

EISSN:1550-4867

DOI:10.1145/2619982

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

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ACM Journals for the Design of Smart and Connected Systems

Publication History

Published: 06 May 2014

Accepted: 01 May 2013

Revised: 01 April 2013

Received: 01 October 2012

Published in TOSN Volume 10, Issue 3

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Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University
SRFDP
Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China
National Natural Science Foundation of China

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Cited By

Muhammad ALi FKhan ZKhan FKhan JKhan S(2025)Exploration of contemporary modernization in UWSNs in the context of localization including opportunities for future research in machine learning and deep learningScientific Reports10.1038/s41598-025-89916-y15:1Online publication date: 15-Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-89916-y
Li GSheng H(2025)Hybrid Models for Forecasting Allocative Localization Error in Wireless Sensor NetworksInternational Journal of Cognitive Computing in Engineering10.1016/j.ijcce.2025.01.0086(333-350)Online publication date: Dec-2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcce.2025.01.008
Cofta PMarciniak B(2024)The effectiveness of reference nodes in reputation-based ad-hoc sensor networksAEU - International Journal of Electronics and Communications10.1016/j.aeue.2024.155244177(155244)Online publication date: Apr-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aeue.2024.155244
Li XQu ZZhao STang BLu ZLiu Y(2023)LoMar: A Local Defense Against Poisoning Attack on Federated LearningIEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing10.1109/TDSC.2021.313542220:1(437-450)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TDSC.2021.3135422
Cofta PMarciniak B(2023)Impact of Reference Nodes on Uncertainty in Hybrid Ad-Hoc Sensor NetworksIEEE Sensors Journal10.1109/JSEN.2023.332620023:23(29323-29332)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/JSEN.2023.3326200
Cofta PMarciniak B(2023)The Infeasibility of Using Reference Nodes in Reputation-Based IoT Sensor Networks2023 16th International Conference on Signal Processing and Communication System (ICSPCS)10.1109/ICSPCS58109.2023.10261158(1-6)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSPCS58109.2023.10261158
Swain RDash TKhilar P(2022)Automated Fault Diagnosis in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Comprehensive SurveyWireless Personal Communications: An International Journal10.1007/s11277-022-09916-3127:4(3211-3243)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2022
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Abid AKhediri SKachouri A(2021)Improved approaches for density-based outlier detection in wireless sensor networksComputing10.1007/s00607-021-00939-5103:10(2275-2292)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2021
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Liu LHan GHe YJiang J(2020)Fault-Tolerant Event Region Detection on Trajectory Pattern Extraction for Industrial Wireless Sensor NetworksIEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics10.1109/TII.2019.293323816:3(2072-2080)Online publication date: Mar-2020
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Syed MDubey M(2020)Compendious elucidation on faults management in wireless sensor networks (wsn)2020 International Conference on Computation, Automation and Knowledge Management (ICCAKM)10.1109/ICCAKM46823.2020.9051469(403-410)Online publication date: Jan-2020
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