Smartphone-Assisted Over-Air Reprogramming Based on Visible Light Communication

Reprogramming is one of the key issues for long-term living wireless sensor networks. Most of current research focuses on optimizing the upper software in order to save energy or improve security. In this paper, we replace the electromagnetic communication with visible light communication applied in reprogramming, and then leverage general sensor node and smartphones for lowering the barrier of VLC applied in reprogramming. However, the unstable light source and low-cost light sensor make the reprogramming procedure difficult. For this, we present a novel incremental reprogramming approach named EasiVLC. This approach refers our previous research and optimizes visible light signal modulation based on VLC for reducing transmission time. The experiment results illustrate effectiveness of EasiVLC at the cost of increasing 52.5% energy overhead by comparison with EC-based reprogramming approach.