Self-organization in communication networks: Principles and design paradigms

The trend toward ubiquitous wireless communication demands for a higher level of self-organization in networks. This article gives an introduction and overview on this topic and investigates the fundamental question: What are design paradigms for developing a self-organized network function? We propose four paradigms and show how they are reflected in current protocols: design local interactions that achieve global properties, exploit implicit coordination, minimize the maintained state, and design protocols that adapt to changes. Finally, we suggest a general design process for self-organized network functions.