Optimized differencing algorithm for firmware updates of low-power devices

Abstract

Modern intelligent systems are often equipped with the low-power wireless sensor or actuator devices in their structure. These devices may need firmware updates once the system is deployed. Battery powered, physically inaccessible devices require energy effective updates. The problem of energy effective updates includes the differencing algorithms that generate small delta files. This paper presents the differencing algorithm that generates the delta files for the updates without an external memory. The proposed algorithm introduces optimizations that improve its performance over the existing solutions. The generated delta files are very small and the updates do not require external flash memory.