1. 1
Wireless Sensor Networks
Dhara Shah
Outline
ïŹ Overview
â Definition
ïŹ Factors influencing WSN design
ïŹ Features of WSN
â Distinguished features from other MAN
ïŹ WSN Protocol Stack
ïŹ Data Handling
ïŹ Media access control schemes
ïŹ Architecture for a Wireless Sensor Network
ïŹ Applications
Overview
ïŹ A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of base
stations and a number of wireless sensors (nodes).
ïŹ sensor
â A transducer
â Converts physical phenomenon e.g. heat, light, motion, vibration, and sound into
electrical signals
ïŹ sensor node
â Basic unit in sensor network
â Contains on-board sensors, processor, memory, transceiver, and power supply
ïŹ sensor network
â Consists of a large number of sensor nodes
â Nodes deployed either inside or very close to the sensed phenomenon
Definition
ïŹ âA wireless sensor network (WSN) is a wireless
network consisting of spatially distributed
autonomous devices using sensors to cooperatively
monitor physical or environmental conditions, such as
temperature, sound, vibration, pressure, motion or
pollutants, at different locations.â
- Wikipedia
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2. 2
Sensor Node Components
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Sensor Node Components
ïŹ Sensing Unit
ïŹ Processing Unit
ïŹ Transceiver Unit
ïŹ Power Unit
ïŹ Location Finding System (optional)
ïŹ Power Generator (optional)
ïŹ Mobilizer (optional)
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Sensor Nodes
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ïŹ Worldsens Inc. Sensor
Node
ïŹ Crossbow Sensor Node
WSN Communication Architecture
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3. 3
Factors Influencing WSN Design
ïŹ Fault tolerance
ïŹ Scalability
ïŹ Production costs
ïŹ Hardware constraints
ïŹ Sensor network topology
ïŹ Environment
ïŹ Transmission media
ïŹ Power Consumption
â Sensing
â Communication
â Data processing9
Features of WSN
ïŹ Requirements
â Nodes with small size, large number and low cost
â Small size implies small battery
â Constrained by energy consumption and communication
â Low cost & energy implies low power CPU
â Radio with minimum bandwidth and range
â Ad-hoc deployment implies no maintenance or battery replacement
ïŹ To increase network lifetime, no raw data is transmitted
Features of WSN
ïŹ Ad Hoc Wireless Networks
â Large number of self-organizing static or mobile nodes that are possibly
randomly deployed
ïŹ Near(est)-neighbor communication
ïŹ Wireless connections
â Links are fragile, possibly asymmetric
â Connectivity depends on power levels and fading
â Interference is high for omnidirectional antennas
Features of WSN
ïŹ Energy is a major constraint
â Nodes are battery-powered
â Nobody is going to change the batteries. So, each operation brings the
node closer to death.
To save energy:
â Sleep as much as possible.
â Acquire data only if indispensable.
â Use data fusion and compression.
â Transmit and receive only if necessary. Receiving is just as costly as
sending.
4. 4
Features of WSN
ïŹ Scalability and Reliability
â Self-configure and robust to topology changes (e.g., death of a node)
â Maintain connectivity: Base Station should reach all nodes
â Ensure coverage
ïŹ Maintenance
â Reprogramming is the only practical kind of maintenance.
â It is highly desirable to reprogram wirelessly.
Features of WSN
ïŹ Data Collection
â Centralized data collection puts extra burden on nodes close to the base
station. Clever routing can alleviate that problem
â Clustering: data from groups of nodes are fused before being transmitted,
so that fewer transmissions are needed
â Often getting measurements from a particular area is more important than
getting data from each node
â Security and authenticity should be guaranteed. However, the CPUs on the
sensing nodes cannot handle fancy encryption schemes.
Features of WSN
ïŹ Power Supply
â AA batteries power the vast majority of existing platforms. They dominate
the node size.
â Alkaline batteries offer a high energy density at a cheap price. The
discharge curve is far from flat, though.
â Lithium coin cells are more compact and boast a flat discharge curve.
Rechargeable batteries: Who does the recharging?
â Solar cells are an option for some applications.
â Fuel cells may be an alternative in the future.
â Energy scavenging techniques are a hot research topic
Features of WSN
ïŹ Radio
â Commercially-available chips
â Available bands: 433 and 916MHz, 2.4GHz ISM bands
â Typical transmit power: 0dBm.
â Narrowband (FSK) or Spread Spectrum communication. DS-SS (e.g.,
ZigBee) or FH-SS (e.g., Bluetooth)
â Relatively low rates (<100 kbps) save power
â Sensitivity: as low as -110dBm
5. 5
Features of WSN
ïŹ CPU
â The Microcontroller Unit (MCU) is the primary choice for in-node processing.
â Power consumption is the key metric in MCU selection.
â The MCU should be able to sleep whenever possible, like the radio.
â Memory requirements depend on the application
â ATmega128L and MSP430 are popular choices
ïŹ Sensors
â The power efficiency of the sensors is
also crucial, as well as their duty cycle.
â MEMS techniques allow miniaturization.
Distinguishing features of WSN
ïŹ WSNs are ad hoc networks
â wireless nodes that self-organize into an infrastructure less network
BUT, in contrast to other ad hoc networks:
ïŹ Sensing and data processing are essential
ïŹ WSNs have many more nodes and are more densely deployed
ïŹ Hardware must be cheap; nodes are more prone to failures
ïŹ WSNs operate under very strict energy constraints
ïŹ WSN nodes are typically static
ïŹ The communication scheme is many-to-one (data collected at a
base station) rather than peer-to-peer
WSN Protocol Stack
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WSN Protocol Stack
ïŹ Sensor management protocol
â Provides software operations needed to perform administrative
tasks e.g. moving sensor nodes, turning them on an off
ïŹ Sensor query and data dissemination protocol
â Provides user applications with interfaces to issue queries and
respond to queries
â Sensor query and tasking language (SQTL)
ïŹ Directed diffusion
ïŹ Sensor MAC (S-MAC)
ïŹ IEEE 802.15.4
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6. 6
Data Handling : Data-Centric Routing
ïŹ Interest distribution is performed to assign
sensing tasks to sensor nodes
â Sinks broadcast the interest
â Sensor nodes broadcast an advertisement for available
data
ïŹ Requires attribute-based naming
â Users are more interested in querying the attribute of the
phenomenon, rather than querying an individual node
â E.g. the sensor nodes in the area where temperature is
greater than 75 °F
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Data handling: Data Aggregation
ïŹ Data coming from multiple sensor
nodes are aggregated if they are
about the same attribute of the
phenomenon when they reach the
same routing node on the way back
to the sink
â Solves implosion and overlap problem
â Energy efficient
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Data Handling: Data-dissemination
Conventional Methods
ïŹ Direct communication with the base station
â Sensor nodes communicate with the base station directly.
â Energy consuming.
ïŹ Multi-hop Scheme
â Transmit through some other intermediate nodes.
â Energy consuming.
Low Energy Adaptive Clustering
Hierarchy (LEACH)
ïŹ Designed for sensor networks where an end-user wants to
remotely monitor the environment.
ïŹ Where the data from the individual nodes must be sent to a
central base station, often located far from the sensor network.
ïŹ Desirable properties for protocols on these networks:
â Use 100âs â 1000âs of nodes
â Maximize system lifetime
â Maximize network coverage
â Use uniform, battery operated nodes
ïŹ The use of distributed cluster formation and local processing
â Reduce global communication along with randomized rotation
â Cluster-heads allows LEACH to achieve the desired properties while being
energy-efficient.
Data-dissemination Schemes (Cont.)
7. 7
Clustering Hierarchy
Data-dissemination Schemes (Cont.)
Media Access Control (MAC) Scheme
Two categories of MAC schemes for wireless networks
ïŹ Contention-based schemes
â Designed for minimum delay and maximum throughput.
â Require transceivers to monitor the channel at all times.
ïŹ Reservation-based or schedule-based schemes
â Detect the neighboring radios before allocating collision-free
channel to a link.
â TDMA âa natural choice for sensor networks.
MAC Scheme (Cont.)
TDMA-based solutions
ïŹ The self-organizing âsuper frameâ algorithm
â Super frame = TDMA period + BOOTUP period + unused
bandwidth
â Performs well only under the specific conditions.
ïŹ Power Aware Clustered TDMA (PACT)
â Divide the TDMA structure into control slot and data slot.
â Hard to maintain the cluster when there are mobile nodes.
MAC Scheme (Cont.)
Other solutions
ïŹ Sensor-MAC (SMAC)
â Nodes periodically sleep.
â A node sleeps during transmission period of other
nodes.
â Not suitable for time-critical applications.
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Architecture for a WSN
Special addressing requirement
ïŹ Local unique addresses
ïŹ Data-centric
ïŹ Example: Each node has an unique number.
Attribute-based naming architecture
ïŹ Data is named by one or more attributes.
ïŹ Example: Each node is distinguished by an
attribute â GPS sensors are practical for this.
Architecture for a WSN (cont.)
An address-free architecture (AFA)
ïŹ Advantage
â Randomly select probabilistically unique identifier for each
transaction.
â Spatial locality.
â Temporal locality.
ïŹ Drawback
â Not applicable when static addressing of nodes is needed.
â Identifier conflict.
WSN Operating Systems
ïŹ TinyOS
ïŹ Contiki
ïŹ MANTIS
ïŹ BTnut
ïŹ SOS
ïŹ Nano-RK
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Overview (Cont.)
Wireless Sensor Node: Components
9. 9
Applications
Applications of Wireless Sensor Networks
ïŹ Military and national security application
ïŹ Environment monitoring (examples coming)
ïŹ Medical application (example coming)
ïŹ Nearly anything you can imagine
Environment monitoring (1)
Great Duck Island
âą 150 sensing nodes deployed throughout the island relay data
temperature, pressure, and humidity to a central device.
âą Data was made available on the Internet through a satellite link.
Environment monitoring (2)
Zebranet: a WSN to study the behavior of zebras
âą Special GPS-equipped collars were attached to zebras
âą Data exchanged with peer-to-peer info swaps
âą Coming across a few zebras gives access to the data
Medical application
ïŹ Intel deployed a 130-node network to monitor
the activity of residents in an elder care
facility.
ïŹ Patient data is acquired with wearable
sensing nodes (the âwatchâ)
âą Vital sign monitoring
âą Accident recognition
âą Monitoring the elderly
10. 10
Final Remarks
ïŹ Can you think of any applications where a
wireless sensor network would be the best
solution?
ïŹ Do you foresee wireless sensor networks
becoming ubiquitous within the next ten
years? During your lifetime?