Determination of Optimal Power for ZigBee-based Wireless Sensor Networks

In designing WSNs, both the transmit power, network topology, and routing scheme are considered. Transmitting at lower power affect the connectivity of the network while transmitting at excessive power reduces the lifetime of nodes and increases the network interference. Thus, determining the optimal power of the nodes that will be necessary to guarantee network connectivity. In this work, a practical self-healing and self-configuring real life prototype ZigBee Wireless Mesh Sensor Networks (WMSNs) was design to evaluate the performance of IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee. We showed that increasing the transmit power of nodes from -6dBm to 0dBm in WMSNs leads to improved packets delivery ratio and throughput improvement and the optimal power was -2dBm for the studied topology. The testbed will aid wireless sensor network designer to make an accurate decision on transmit power and mesh network topology using Ad-hoc on-demand distance vector algorithm (AODV) as the routing scheme

A taxonomy and evaluation for developing 802.11‐based wireless mesh network testbeds

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/92433/1/dac1299.pd

Connectionless indoor inventory tracking in Zigbee RFID sensor network

Abstract: Zigbee is one of the most exciting wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies for monitoring and control. In our previous research, an integrated Zigbee RFID sensor network was designed as an ‘all-in-one’ system solution for Humanitarian Logistics Center (HLC) resource management. Various field trials, which have justified the feasibility and features of such a system structure, have also revealed the requirement for simple yet reliable mobile tracking architecture for Zigbee network. In this paper a connectionless tracking architecture based on Zigbee RFID sensor network is proposed for inventory management applications. Such architecture features a consistent network structure, low hardware energy consumption and no accumulated error for localization algorithms with the least additional cost and hardware required on top of the existing Zigbee RFID sensor network systems. A simple demo system is also developed to demonstrate the feasibility of our design

Smart Computing and Sensing Technologies for Animal Welfare: A Systematic Review

Animals play a profoundly important and intricate role in our lives today. Dogs have been human companions for thousands of years, but they now work closely with us to assist the disabled, and in combat and search and rescue situations. Farm animals are a critical part of the global food supply chain, and there is increasing consumer interest in organically fed and humanely raised livestock, and how it impacts our health and environmental footprint. Wild animals are threatened with extinction by human induced factors, and shrinking and compromised habitat. This review sets the goal to systematically survey the existing literature in smart computing and sensing technologies for domestic, farm and wild animal welfare. We use the notion of \emph{animal welfare} in broad terms, to review the technologies for assessing whether animals are healthy, free of pain and suffering, and also positively stimulated in their environment. Also the notion of \emph{smart computing and sensing} is used in broad terms, to refer to computing and sensing systems that are not isolated but interconnected with communication networks, and capable of remote data collection, processing, exchange and analysis. We review smart technologies for domestic animals, indoor and outdoor animal farming, as well as animals in the wild and zoos. The findings of this review are expected to motivate future research and contribute to data, information and communication management as well as policy for animal welfare