Wireless Sensor Networks

Lecturer:
Course:
Unit: Lecture:

Michael O'Grady
MSc Ubiquitous & Multimedia Systems
Context Sensitive Service Delivery

Objectives
Sensor Components WSN Components Design issues Applications

Some Thoughts
Recall Weisers vision for Ubiq. Computing
Sense physical phenomena Two Objectives:
Ubiquity inject computation into the physical environment with a high spatial density Invisibility- computational nodes operate autonomously

Recall Ambient Intelligence.. How will this happen?

One potential Solution = Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs)

Classification of Sensor Networks

Event Detection
Report specified event

Periodic Measurements
Report measurements at certain time intervals

Function approximation
Value approximation using a sample temperature Isothermal points identify edge of forest fire

Tracking
Surveillance

Architecture of a WSN
Three Components (for this discussion!)
Node Sink Task Node Manager

Sensor Node: Tasks

Computation Storage Communication Sensing/Actuation

Sensor Node: Characteristics

Small Size Battery Limited CPU Wireless communications capability One or more sensors (temperature etc)

Sensor Node: Components

Sensing Unit Processing Unit Power Unit Transceiver

Node - Sensing Unit

Senses or measures certain physical phenomenon
Light Sound Et c etc

Analogue signal generated by Sensor Signal digitised and sent to the Processing Unit ADC Analogue-to-Digital Converter (ADC)

Note: alternative Sensor architectures available

Node - Processing Unit

Processes sensed data Collaborates with other Nodes to achieve WSNs objectives. Components
Microcontrollers/Microprocessors FPGA (Field programmable Gate Arrays)
Reprogrammable / reconfigurable

Memory
Flash (low cost / storage capacity)

Node - Power Unit

Batteries
Alkaline
wide voltage range Large physical size

Lithium
Constant voltage supply Low currents

Major Challenge: How to effectively preserve and capture power in a WSN?????

Node - Transceiver
Three popular communication schemes
Optical Communication (Laser)
Low energy requirement (no antenna) secure Line of Sight required Sensitive to atmospheric conditions

Infra-Red (IR)
No antenna Limited in its broadcasting capacity

Radio Freuency (RF)

Antenna required Easy to use

WSN - Sink
Sink
A node that data should be delivered to
Base station Cluster head

Gateway Node
Internet Cellular network PSTN

WSN- Task Node Manager

Management Administration Interface
WSN health WSN status Alarms

Design Issues I
Fault Tolerance
Sustain WSN operation despite individual node failure

Scalability
Maintain performance regardless of WSN size

Production Costs
Directly proportional to the cost of the node Ideally << 1 USD

Hardware Constraints
Node should be less than size of matchbox!!!!!

Design Issues II
Sensor Network Topology
Deployment Strategies
Pre-deployment
How? Plane?, one by one?

Post-deployment
Topology changes Position Reachability Energy Malfunctionality Task

Redeployment
how?

Design Issues III

Environment
Close to observed phenomenon

Transmission Media
RF Infrared optical

Power Consumption
Strategy for power management/conversation Three domains
Sensing Communication Data processing

Applications of WSNs
Disaster Relief Environmental monitoring Intelligent Buildings Facility management Machine monitoring Precision agriculture Medicine Logistics Telematics

Unconventional Power Sources

Power - an Achilles heel for WSNs? Recall Energy Scavenging
Photovoltaics (solar) Temperature gradients Vibrations
Mechanical energy

Pressure Variation
Piezoelectric generator Shoe

Air/liquid flow
Miniature gas turbines

Autonomic Computing
What is Autonomic Computing? What was the motivation for its development? What are its 4 essential characteristics?
Why integrate Autonomic computing concepts with Wireless Sensor Networks?

Some Readings
Culler, D., Estrin, D., Srivastava, M. Overview of Sensor Networks Akyildiz, I. F.; Su, W.; Sankarasubramaniam, Y.; and Cayirci, E. A. 2002. A survey on sensor networks. IEEE Communications Magazine 40(8):102-114. Kephart, J. O. and Chess, D. M. 2003. The Vision of Autonomic Computing. Computer 36, 1 (Jan. 2003), 41-50.

The End

Project Demonstration
Wednesday 28th November 2006 Format
Short overview of the project Demo of the project Individual Contributions

Final Report
Due this coming Monday 6.00 PM Remember - names & Students Numbers

Provisional Exam Timetable

COMP40320 Adaptive Personalisation

Tuesday 12th December 2006 RDS 12.0013.45

COMP40300 - Context Sensitive Service Delivery

Saturday 16th December 2006 RDS 12.00-13.45