Multi-block FEC for reprogramming wireless sensor networks

Reprogramming a wireless sensor network requires accurate broadcast of the code to its all nodes. A multi-block forward error correction technique was used, in which blocks were encoded using a rateless code, such as a Luby transform (LT) code. When relaying data, a node salvages any error-free blocks from a corrupted frame and uses them in constructing a new frame. This creates diversity in the data relayed by the nodes, giving downstream nodes an improved chance of obtainining a subset version of any block. Experiments show that this approach achieves significant reduction in network traffic.