Rapid Top-Down Synthesis of Large-Scale IoT Networks

Advances in optimization and constraint satisfaction techniques, together with the availability of elastic computing resources, have spurred interest in large-scale network verification and synthesis. Motivated by this, we consider the top-down synthesis of ad-hoc IoT networks for disaster response and search and rescue operations. This synthesis problem must satisfy complex and competing constraints: sensor coverage, line-of-sight visibility, and network connectivity. The central challenge in our synthesis problem is quickly scaling to large regions while producing cost-effective solutions. We explore a representation of the synthesis problems using a novel constraint satisfaction paradigm, satisfiability modulo convex optimization (SMC). We choose SMC because it matches the expressivity needs for our network synthesis. To scale to large problem sizes, we develop a hierarchical synthesis technique that independently synthesizes networks in sub-regions of the deployment area, then combines these. Our experiments show that SMC consistently generates better quality solutions than a baseline synthesis approach based on Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP).