Implementation of RTOS to the WSN node

Bezdrátové senzorické sieťe zväčša používajú `event-driven` operačné systémy. Táto práca diskutuje výhody nevýhody použitia RTOS v bezdrátových senzorických sieťach. Najvhodnejší RTOS je vybratý a sú podniknuté všetky kroky aby bolo možne demonštrovať schopnosť mikrokontrolérov Gecko od EnergyMicro prevádzkovať tento RTOS s nízkou spotrebou energie a demonštrovať jednoduchú bezdrátovú komunikáciu s Atmel AT86RF212 rádiami.Wireless sensors networks mostly use event-driven OSes. This works discusses pros and cons of using RTOS in wirless sensors networks. A most appropriate RTOS is chosen and all necessary steps are undergone to demonstrate EnergyMicro Gecko MCU's ability to run the RTOS with low energy consumption and demonstrate wireless simple communication with Atmel AT86RF212 radios.

A critical analysis of research potential, challenges and future directives in industrial wireless sensor networks

In recent years, Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs) have emerged as an important research theme with applications spanning a wide range of industries including automation, monitoring, process control, feedback systems and automotive. Wide scope of IWSNs applications ranging from small production units, large oil and gas industries to nuclear fission control, enables a fast-paced research in this field. Though IWSNs offer advantages of low cost, flexibility, scalability, self-healing, easy deployment and reformation, yet they pose certain limitations on available potential and introduce challenges on multiple fronts due to their susceptibility to highly complex and uncertain industrial environments. In this paper a detailed discussion on design objectives, challenges and solutions, for IWSNs, are presented. A careful evaluation of industrial systems, deadlines and possible hazards in industrial atmosphere are discussed. The paper also presents a thorough review of the existing standards and industrial protocols and gives a critical evaluation of potential of these standards and protocols along with a detailed discussion on available hardware platforms, specific industrial energy harvesting techniques and their capabilities. The paper lists main service providers for IWSNs solutions and gives insight of future trends and research gaps in the field of IWSNs

Efficient GTS Allocation Schemes for IEEE 802.15.4

IEEE 802.15.4 is a standard defined for wireless sensor network applications with limited power and relaxed throughput needs. The devices transmit data during two periods: Contention Access Period (CAP) by accessing the channel using CSMA/CA and Contention Free Period (CFP), which consists of Guaranteed Time Slots (GTS) allocated to individual devices by the network coordinator. The GTS is used by devices for cyclic data transmission and the coordinator can allocate GTS to a maximum of only seven devices. In this work, we have proposed two algorithms for an efficient GTS allocation. The first algorithm is focused on improving the bandwidth utilization of devices, while the second algorithm uses traffic arrival information of devices to allow sharing of GTS slots between more than seven devices. The proposed schemes were tested through simulations and the results show that the new GTS allocation schemes perform better than the original IEEE 802.15.4 standard

Simulating Real-Time Aspects of Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) technology has been mainly used in the applications with low-frequency sampling and little computational complexity. Recently, new classes of WSN-based applications with different characteristics are being considered, including process control, industrial automation and visual surveillance. Such new applications usually involve relatively heavy computations and also present real-time requirements as bounded end-to- end delay and guaranteed Quality of Service. It becomes then necessary to employ proper resource management policies, not only for communication resources but also jointly for computing resources, in the design and development of such WSN-based applications. In this context, simulation can play a critical role, together with analytical models, for validating a system design against the parameters of Quality of Service demanded for. In this paper, we present RTNS, a publicly available free simulation tool which includes Operating System aspects in wireless distributed applications. RTNS extends the well-known NS-2 simulator with models of the CPU, the Real-Time Operating System and the application tasks, to take into account delays due to the computation in addition to the communication. We demonstrate the benefits of RTNS by presenting our simulation study for a complex WSN-based multi-view vision system for real-time event detection

MAC protocols for low-latency and energy-efficient WSN applications

Most of medium access control (MAC) protocols proposed for wireless sensor networks (WSN) are targeted only for single main objective, the energy efficiency. Other critical parameters such as low-latency, adaptivity to traffic conditions, scalability, system fairness, and bandwidth utilization are mostly overleaped or dealt as secondary objectives. The demand to address those issues increases with the growing interest in cheap, low-power, low- distance, and embedded WSNs. In this report, along with other vital parameters, we discuss suitability and limitations of different WSN MAC protocols for time critical and energy-efficient applications. As an example, we discuss the working of IEEE 802.15.4 in detail, explore its limitations, and derive efficient application-specific network parameter settings for time, energy, and bandwidth critical applications. Eventually, a new WSN MAC protocol Asynchronous Real-time Energy-efficient and Adaptive MAC (AREA-MAC) is proposed, which is intended to deal efficiently with time critical applications, and at the same time, to provide a better trade-off between other vital parameters, such as energy-efficiency, system fairness, throughput, scalability, and adaptivity to traffic conditions. On the other hand, two different optimization problems have been formulated using application-based traffic generating scenario to minimize network latency and maximize its lifetime

Beacon scheduling in cluster-tree IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee wireless sensor networks

The recently standardized IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee protocol stack offers great potentials for ubiquitous and pervasive computing, namely for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). However, there are still some open and ambiguous issues that turn its practical use a challenging task. One of those issues is how to build a synchronized multi-hop cluster-tree network, which is quite suitable for QoS support in WSNs. In fact, the current IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee specifications restrict the synchronization in the beacon-enabled mode (by the generation of periodic beacon frames) to star-based networks, while it supports multi-hop networking using the peer-to-peer mesh topology, but with no synchronization. Even though both specifications mention the possible use of cluster-tree topologies, which combine multi-hop and synchronization features, the description on how to effectively construct such a network topology is missing. This report tackles this problem, unveils the ambiguities regarding the use of the cluster-tree topology and proposes two collisionfree beacon frame scheduling schemes

A comprehensive survey of wireless body area networks on PHY, MAC, and network layers solutions

Recent advances in microelectronics and integrated circuits, system-on-chip design, wireless communication and intelligent low-power sensors have allowed the realization of a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). A WBAN is a collection of low-power, miniaturized, invasive/non-invasive lightweight wireless sensor nodes that monitor the human body functions and the surrounding environment. In addition, it supports a number of innovative and interesting applications such as ubiquitous healthcare, entertainment, interactive gaming, and military applications. In this paper, the fundamental mechanisms of WBAN including architecture and topology, wireless implant communication, low-power Medium Access Control (MAC) and routing protocols are reviewed. A comprehensive study of the proposed technologies for WBAN at Physical (PHY), MAC, and Network layers is presented and many useful solutions are discussed for each layer. Finally, numerous WBAN applications are highlighted

Application priority framework for fixed mobile converged communication networks

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The current prospects in wired and wireless access networks, it is becoming increasingly important to address potential convergence in order to offer integrated broadband services. These systems will need to offer higher data transmission capacities and long battery life, which is the catalyst for an everincreasing variety of air interface technologies targeting local area to wide area connectivity. Current integrated industrial networks do not offer application aware context delivery and enhanced services for optimised networks. Application aware services provide value-added functionality to business applications by capturing, integrating, and consolidating intelligence about users and their endpoint devices from various points in the network. This thesis mainly intends to resolve the issues related to ubiquitous application aware service, fair allocation of radio access, reduced energy consumption and improved capacity. A technique that measures and evaluates the data rate demand to reduce application response time and queuing delay for multi radio interfaces is proposed. The technique overcomes the challenges of network integration, requiring no user intervention, saving battery life and selecting the radio access connection for the application requested by the end user. This study is split in two parts. The first contribution identifies some constraints of the services towards the application layer in terms of e.g. data rate and signal strength. The objectives are achieved by application controlled handover (ACH) mechanism in order to maintain acceptable data rate for real-time application services. It also looks into the impact of the radio link on the application and identifies elements and parameters like wireless link quality and handover that will influence the application type. It also identifies some enhanced traditional mechanisms such as distance controlled multihop and mesh topology required in order to support energy efficient multimedia applications. The second contribution unfolds an intelligent application priority assignment mechanism (IAPAM) for medical applications using wireless sensor networks. IAPAM proposes and evaluates a technique based on prioritising multiple virtual queues for the critical nature of medical data to improve instant transmission. Various mobility patterns (directed, controlled and random waypoint) has been investigated and compared by simulating IAPAM enabled mobile BWSN. The following topics have been studied, modelled, simulated and discussed in this thesis: 1. Application Controlled Handover (ACH) for multi radios over fibre 2. Power Controlled Scheme for mesh multi radios over fibre using ACH 3. IAPAM for Biomedical Wireless Sensor Networks (BWSN) and impact of mobility over IAPAM enabled BWSN. Extensive simulation studies are performed to analyze and to evaluate the proposed techniques. Simulation results demonstrate significant improvements in multi radios over fibre performance in terms of application response delay and power consumption by upto 75% and 15 % respectively, reduction in traffic loss by upto 53% and reduction in delay for real time application by more than 25% in some cases

An Overview on Wireless Sensor Networks Technology and Evolution

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) enable new applications and require non-conventional paradigms for protocol design due to several constraints. Owing to the requirement for low device complexity together with low energy consumption (i.e., long network lifetime), a proper balance between communication and signal/data processing capabilities must be found. This motivates a huge effort in research activities, standardization process, and industrial investments on this field since the last decade. This survey paper aims at reporting an overview of WSNs technologies, main applications and standards, features in WSNs design, and evolutions. In particular, some peculiar applications, such as those based on environmental monitoring, are discussed and design strategies highlighted; a case study based on a real implementation is also reported. Trends and possible evolutions are traced. Emphasis is given to the IEEE 802.15.4 technology, which enables many applications of WSNs. Some example of performance characteristics of 802.15.4-based networks are shown and discussed as a function of the size of the WSN and the data type to be exchanged among nodes

A real-time packet scheduling system for a 6LoWPAN industrial application

Nowadays, the industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are crucial for the monitoring and control of the modern smart factory floor that is relying on them for critical applications and tasks that were performed by wired systems in the past. For this reason, it is required that the transmission mechanisms of wireless sensor networks are efficient and robust and that they guarantee realtime responses with low data losses. Furthermore, it is required that they utilize common networking standards, such as the Internet Protocol (IP), that provides interoperability with already existing infrastructures and offers widely tested security and transmission control protocols. The theoretical part of this document focuses on the description of the current panorama of the industrial WSN, its applications, design challenges and standardizations. It describes the 6LoWPAN standard and the wireless transmission technology that it uses for its lower layers, the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol. Later, it describes the principles behind the wireless scheduling, a state-of-the-art in the IEEE 802.15.4 scheduled channel access and the features of the most used operating systems for WSN. The practical part presents the real-time packet scheduling system for a 6LoWPAN industrial application proposed by this thesis work that adapts the HSDPA scheduling mechanisms to the IEEE 802.15.4 beacon-enabled mode. The system implemented manages the channel access by allocating Guaranteed Time Slots to sensor nodes according to the priority given by three scheduling algorithms that can be selected according to the traffic condition of the network. The system proposed was programmed using Contiki OS. It is based on the eSONIA 6LoWPAN firmware developed for the European Research Project and it was deployed on the FAST WSN for testing. The results, discussion and conclusions are documented at the final sections of this part