Sensor networks

This research addresses communication reliability in the highly constrained wireless sensor networks environment. We propose a cross-layer, reliable wireless sensor protocol design. The protocol benefits from the body of research in the two areas of wireless sensors reliability research and wireless sensors energy conservation research. The protocol introduces a new energy saving technique that considers reliability as a design parameter and constraint. The protocol also introduces a new back-off algorithm that dynamically adjusts to the data messages reliability needs. Other cross-layer techniques that the protocol introduces are dynamic MAC retry limit and dynamic transmission power setting that is also based on the messages reliability requirements. Cross layer design is defined as the interaction between the different stack layers with the goal of improving performance. It has been used in ad hoc wireless systems to improve throughput, latency, and quality of service (QoS). The improvements gained in performance come at a price. This includes decreased architecture modularity and designs may be hard to debug, maintain or upgrade. Cross-layer design is valuable for wireless sensor networks due to the severe resource constraints. The proposed protocol uses cross-layer design as a performance and energy optimization technique. Nevertheless, the protocol avoids introducing layer interdependencies by preserving the stack architecture and optimizes the overall system energy and reliability performance by information sharing. The information is embedded as flags in the data and control messages that are moving through the stack. Each layer reads these flags and adjusts its performance and handling of the message accordingly. The performance of the proposed protocol is evaluated using simulation modeling. The reference protocol used for evaluation is APTEEN.

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is composed of low-cost electronic devices with sensing, data storage and transmitting capabilities, powered by batteries. There are extensive studies in the field of WSN investigating different algorithms and protocols for data collection. A data collector can be static or mobile. Using a mobile data collector can extend network lifetime and can be used to collect sensor data in hardly accessible locations, partitioned networks, and delay-tolerant networks. The implementation of the mobile data collector in our study consists of combining two different platforms: the Crossbow sensor hardware and the NXT Legos. We developed an application for data collection and sensor querying support. Another important contribution is designing a semi-autonomous robot control. This hardware prototype implementation shows the benefits of using a mobile data collector in WSN. It also serves as a reference in developing future applications for mobile WSNs.

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is composed of a large number of sensor nodes that are densely deployed in an area. One of the main issues addressed in WSNs research is energy efficiency due to sensors' limited energy resources. WSNs are deployed to monitor and control the physical environment, and to transmit the collected data to one or more sinks using multi-hop communication. Energy efficiency protocols represent a key mechanism in WSNs. This dissertation proposes several methods used to prolong WSNs lifetime focusing on designing energy efficient communication protocols. A critical issue for data gathering in WSNs is the formation of energy holes near the sinks where sensor nodes participate more in relaying data on behalf of other sensors. The solution proposed in this dissertation is to use mobile sinks that change their location to overcome the formation of energy holes. First, a study of the improvement in network lifetime when sinks move along the perimeter of a hexagonal tiling is conveyed. Second, a design of a distributed and localized algorithm used by sinks to decide their next move is proposed. Two extensions of the distributed algorithm, coverage and time-delivery requirement, are also addressed. Sensor scheduling mechanisms are used to increase network lifetime by sending redundant sensor nodes to sleep. In this dissertation a localized connected dominating set based approach is used to optimize network lifetime of a composite event detection application. A set of active nodes form a connected set that monitor the environment and send data to sinks. After some time, a new active nodes set is chosen. Thus, network lifetime is prolonged by alternating the active sensors. QoS is another main issue encountered in WSNs because of the dynamically changing network topology.

Sensors are used to monitor and control the physical environment. A Wireless Sen- sor Network (WSN) is composed of a large number of sensor nodes that are densely deployed either inside the phenomenon or very close to it [18][5]. Sensor nodes measure various parameters of the environment and transmit data collected to one or more sinks, using hop-by-hop communication. Once a sink receives sensed data, it processes and forwards it to the users. Sensors are usually battery powered and it is hard to recharge them. It will take a limited time before they deplete their energy and become unfunctional. Optimizing energy consumption to prolong network lifetime is an important issue in wireless sensor networks. In mobile sensor networks, sensors can self-propel via springs [14], wheels [20], or they can be attached to transporters, such as robots [20] and vehicles [36]. In static sensor networks with uniform deployment (uniform density), sensors closest to the sink will die first, which will cause uneven energy consumption and limitation of network life- time. In the dissertation, the nonuniform density is studied and analyzed so that the energy consumption within the monitored area is balanced and the network lifetime is prolonged. Several mechanisms are proposed to relocate the sensors after the initial deployment to achieve the desired density while minimizing the total moving cost. Using mobile relays for data gathering is another energy efficient approach. Mobile sensors can be used as ferries, which carry data to the sink for static sensors so that expensive multi-hop communication and long distance communication are reduced. In this thesis, we propose a mobile relay based routing protocol that considers both energy efficiency and data delivery delay. It can be applied to both event-based reporting and periodical report applications.

Wireless sensor networks are used in areas that are inaccessible, inhospitable or for continuous monitoring. The main use of such networks is for event detection. Event detection is used to monitor a particular environment for an event such as fire or flooding. Composite event detection is used to break down the detection of the event into the specific conditions that need to be present for the event to occur. Using this method, each sensor node does not need to carry every sensing component necessary to detect the event. Since energy efficiency is important the sensor nodes need to be scheduled so that they consume [sic] consume as little energy as possible to extend the network lifetime. In this thesis, a solution to the sensor Scheduling for Composite Event Detection (SCED) problem will be presented as a way to improve the network lifetime when using composite event detection.