Wireless Sensor Networks
1. Introduction
The increasing interest in wireless sensor networks can be promptly understood simply by thinking about what they essentially are: a large number of small sensing self-powered nodes which gather information or detect special events and communicate in a wireless fashion, with the end goal of handing their processed data to a base station. Sensing, processing and communication are three key elements whose combination in one tiny device gives rise to a vast number of applications
[A1], [A2]. Sensor networks provide endless opportunities, but at the same time pose formidable challenges, such as the fact that energy is a scarce and usually non-renewable resource. However, recent advances in low power VLSI, embedded computing, communication hardware, and in general, the convergence of computing and communications, are making this emerging technology a reality [A3]. Likewise, advances in nanotechnology and Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) are pushing toward networks of tiny distributed sensors and actuators. 2. Applications of Sensor Networks
Possible applications of sensor networks are of interest to the most diverse fields. Environmental monitoring, warfare, child education, surveillance, micro-surgery, and agriculture are only a few examples [A4]. Through joint efforts of the University of California at Berkeley and the
College of the Atlantic, environmental monitoring is carried out off the coast of Maine on Great Duck Island by means of a network of Berkeley motes equipped with various sensors [B6]. The nodes send their data to a base station which makes them available on the Internet. Since habitat monitoring is rather sensitive to human presence, the deployment of a sensor network provides a noninvasive approach and a remarkable degree of granularity in data acquisition [B7]. The same idea lies behind the
Pods project at the University of Hawaii at Manoa [B8], where environmental data (air temperature,
The increasing interest in wireless sensor networks can be promptly understood simply by thinking about what they essentially are: a large number of small sensing self-powered nodes which gather information or detect special events and communicate in a wireless fashion, with the end goal of handing their processed data to a base station. Sensing, processing and communication are three key elements whose combination in one tiny device gives rise to a vast number of applications
[A1], [A2]. Sensor networks provide endless opportunities, but at the same time pose formidable challenges, such as the fact that energy is a scarce and usually non-renewable resource. However, recent advances in low power VLSI, embedded computing, communication hardware, and in general, the convergence of computing and communications, are making this emerging technology a reality [A3]. Likewise, advances in nanotechnology and Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) are pushing toward networks of tiny distributed sensors and actuators. 2. Applications of Sensor Networks
Possible applications of sensor networks are of interest to the most diverse fields. Environmental monitoring, warfare, child education, surveillance, micro-surgery, and agriculture are only a few examples [A4]. Through joint efforts of the University of California at Berkeley and the
College of the Atlantic, environmental monitoring is carried out off the coast of Maine on Great Duck Island by means of a network of Berkeley motes equipped with various sensors [B6]. The nodes send their data to a base station which makes them available on the Internet. Since habitat monitoring is rather sensitive to human presence, the deployment of a sensor network provides a noninvasive approach and a remarkable degree of granularity in data acquisition [B7]. The same idea lies behind the
Pods project at the University of Hawaii at Manoa [B8], where environmental data (air temperature,
References: pp. 102–114, Aug. 2002. Systems (ASPLOS-X), San Jose, CA, Oct. 2002. vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 38–45, 2004. International Workshop on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks, London, UK, 2004. patient monitoring,” in 8th Annual New England Regional Trauma Conference, Burlington, MA, 2002. no. 4, pp. 22–33, 2003. vol. 9, pp. 8–27, Aug. 2002. Sept. 2004. Societies (INFOCOM’01), vol. 3, Anchorage, AK, pp. 1380–1387, Apr. 2001.