Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) almost invariably support a centralised network management model. Though the data gathering function is conducted remotely, such data is usually routed via data sinks to central servers for processing, storage, visualisation and interpretation. However, the issue of supporting remote access to WSNs and individual sensor nodes whilst in their physical environment has not been viewed as a priority. It is envisaged that this situation will change as WSNs proliferate in a range of domains, and the potential for supporting innovative revenue-generating services manifest themselves. As a step towards realising such access, a mobile gateway has been designed and implemented. This gateway supports Zigbee as this is the predominant protocol supported by WSNs. Furthermore, it also supports Bluetooth, thereby facilitating interaction with conventional mobile devices. The gateway is programmable according to the needs of arbitrary services and applications.Science Foundation Irelandau,ke,vo,is,st,en,SB-08/09/201

Angove, Philip

Diamond, Dermot

Hayes, Jer

O'Flynn, Brendan

O'Grady, Michael J.

O'Hare, G. M. P. (Greg M. P.)

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) almost invariably

support a centralised network management model. Though the

data gathering function is conducted remotely, such data is

usually routed via data sinks to central servers for processing, storage, visualisation and interpretation. However, the issue of supporting remote access to WSNs and individual sensor nodes whilst in their physical environment has not been viewed as a priority. It is envisaged that this situation will change as WSNs

proliferate in a range of domains, and the potential for supporting innovative revenue-generating services manifest themselves. As a step towards realising such access, a mobile gateway has been designed and implemented. This gateway supports Zigbee as this is the predominant protocol supported by WSNs. Furthermore, it also supports Bluetooth, thereby facilitating interaction with conventional mobile devices. The gateway is programmable according to the needs of arbitrary services and applications

O'Hare, Gregory M.P.

Cork Open Research Archive

Title A mobile gateway for remote interaction with wireless sensor networksAuthor(s) Angove, Philip; O'Grady, Michael J.; Hayes, Jer; O'Flynn, Brendan;O'Hare, Gregory M.P.; Diamond, DermotPublication date 2011-12Original citation ANGOVE, P., O'GRADY, M., HAYES, J., O'FLYNN, B., O'HARE, G.M. P. & DIAMOND, D. 2011. A Mobile Gateway for RemoteInteraction With Wireless Sensor Networks. Sensors Journal, IEEE, 11,3309-3310. doi: 10.1109/JSEN.2011.2159199Type of publication Article (peer-reviewed)Link to publisher'sversionhttp://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5871997&tag=1http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JSEN.2011.2159199Access to the full text of the published version may require asubscription.Rights (c) 2011, IEEE.  Personal use of this material is permitted.Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users,including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising orpromotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale orredistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrightedcomponents of this work in other works.Item downloadedfromhttp://hdl.handle.net/10468/506Downloaded on 2017-02-12T08:21:26ZIEEE SENSORS JOURNAL 1A Mobile Gateway for Remote Interaction withWireless Sensor NetworksPhilip Angove, Member, IEEE, Michael O’Grady, Senior Member, IEEE, Jer Hayes, Member, IEEE,Brendan O’Flynn, Senior Member, IEEE, Gregory O’Hare, Member, IEEE,and Dermot Diamond, Life Fellow, IEEEAbstract—Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) almost invariablysupport a centralised network management model. Though thedata gathering function is conducted remotely, such data isusually routed via data sinks to central servers for processing,storage, visualisation and interpretation. However, the issue ofsupporting remote access to WSNs and individual sensor nodeswhilst in their physical environment has not been viewed as apriority. It is envisaged that this situation will change as WSNsproliferate in a range of domains, and the potential for supportinginnovative revenue-generating services manifest themselves. As astep towards realising such access, a mobile gateway has beendesigned and implemented. This gateway supports Zigbee as thisis the predominant protocol supported by WSNs. Furthermore,it also supports Bluetooth, thereby facilitating interaction withconventional mobile devices. The gateway is programmableaccording to the needs of arbitrary services and applications.Index Terms—Wireless Sensor Networks, remote accessI. INTRODUCTIONCONVENTIONAL perceptions of Wireless Sensor Net-work (WSN) configurations are inherently centralised,ensuring all key activities including processing and storage,take place at a centralised location. However, there are situa-tions where interactions with individual sensor nodes may beessential. An exemplar case is that of WSN Operations andMaintenance (O&M). When deployed in a physical environ-ment, the performance of a WSN will inevitably deteriorateover time. Eventually, situations will emerge that demandoperatives visit the network in the field. Fundamental to remoteO&M is a means for interaction with the WSN throughindividual nodes. The issue of incompatible protocols is onekey barrier to enabling remote access via conventional mobilephones. To remedy this situation, a mobile gateway has beenimplemented, that, when placed in a WSN field, enablescommunications between mobile devices and individual WSNnodes.A. Related ResearchMobile WSN nodes are not a new concept, and havebeen proposed for remedying a number of inherent problemswith WSNs including data collection [1], network operationalManuscript received April 19, 2005; revised January 11, 2007.Philip Angove and Brendan O’Flynn are with the Tyndall National In-stitute, ”Lee Maltings” Dyke Parade, Cork Ireland. e-mail: {philip.angove,brendan.oflynn} @tyndall.ie.Michael O’Grady and Gregory O’Hare are with University College Dublin.Jer Hayes is with IBM,......Dermot Diamond is with Dublin City University............Fig. 1. Using the Mobile Gateway to access a WSN subnet.lifetime [2] and connectivity [3]. The potential of mobilephones as a means of connecting WSNs to the internet hasbeen explored by Harnett [4] amongst others. Likewise, theissue of interaction between phones and sensor nodes has beenexplored by Lifton [5] and Ringwald [6],though in each case,the solution is closely tied to individual technologies. Themobile gateway described in this paper is a generic solution,supporting Zigbee, the most common protocol supported byWSNs, and Bluetooth, which is available on practically allmobile devices.II. A MOBILE GATEWAYTo enable practical remote sensor node connectivity, a mo-bile Bluetooth (BT) gateway resident on a WSN backbone, forexample Zigbee, and utilizing a stackable modular connectorsystem [7] thereby enabling interchangeability (for example,an alternative 433MHz RF layer) was envisaged. The standardBluetooth module UART connection to an onboard devicemicro-controller and the use of the Serial Port Profile (SPP)does not meet the low power sleep requirements in longterm WSN deployments. To overcome these power issues, anarchitecture with sensor RF (ZigBee) acting as Master, andthereby being in control of data transfer, was proposed. Anapplication deployed on a smart phone (slave) can be con-figured for continuously polling or sniffing for any availablesensor data whilst on the move. To enable reliable power-efficient communications, a serial protocol, with hand shaking,residing on top of the standard Bluetooth protocol stack, wasproposed. Virtual COM port connection to the within-rangediscoverable sensor devices can subsequently be relinquishedfollowing successful data transfer. Thus a Master role for WSNnodes is seen as the most power efficient method on batteryconstrained sensor node devices, whereby mobile device canIEEE SENSORS JOURNAL 2Fig. 2. Schemetic of the Mobile Gateway.remain in sniff mode (as a discoverable slave), scanning fornearby nodes. This is of particular importance in the caseof low duty cycle nodes that remove BT power to saveenergy. Serial communications protocol ensures successfulBT transmission (QoS) with minimum power by utilising ahandshaking command set, including, in addition to RTS,CTS, pause, start of frame and EOF eliminators. Wasp mote[8], recently released from Libelium, has a similar hybrid RFarchitecture, with a radio power-off feature; however it remainsunclear how practical resource-constrained communicationscan be implemented, for example, by using a serial protocolon top of the BT stack. Similarly [9] discuss a BT moduleapproach with simple modifications to a TelosB gatewayinvolving direct data forwarding to both the USB port andthe BT module. While the BT module can be placed in sniffmode, a possible limitation may be the considerable gatewaypower usage. Utilising the discussed BT power minimizationand serial protocol, BT can be used for WSN sensor dataor firmware upgrades. The solution described here involves aPluggable Bluetooth 2.0/EDR Class1 Module, incorporatingsensors for CO and VOC’s amongst others. A sample GUIapplication was developed to display sensor data and to pollperiodically for any available in-range discoverable connectionrequests from sensor networks. Consequently, Over-the-airupgrades of nodes is possible. Hybrid BT / ZigBee networkshave been implemented albeit only with limited support forpluggable low-power gateways. The solution described hererepresents a more realistic approach for remotely deployednetworks where mains-powered gateways are not an option.Moreover, the Pluggable nature allows optimal positioning ofgateways for best mobile RF connectivity.III. CONCLUSIONIn this paper, the design and implementation of a mobilegateway for supporting remote interaction with WSN nodeshas been described. Such a facility is essential for O&Moperations in geographically disperse WSNs, and opens op-portunities for new WSN-based services.ACKNOWLEDGMENTWe would like to acknowledge the National Access Program(NAP) provided by the Tyndall National Institute, and the sup-port of Science Foundation Ireland under grant 07/CE/I1147.REFERENCES[1] F.-J. Wu, C.-F. Huang, and Y.-C. Tseng, “Data gathering by mobilemules in a spatially separated wireless sensor network,” in MDM ’09:Proceedings of the 2009 Tenth International Conference on Mobile DataManagement: Systems, Services and Middleware. Washington, DC,USA: IEEE Computer Society, 2009, pp. 293–298.[2] Y. Yang, M. I. Fonoage, and M. Cardei, “Improving network lifetime withmobile wireless sensor networks,” Computer Communications, vol. 33,no. 4, pp. 409 – 419, 2010.[3] E. Ekici, Y. Gu, and D. Bozdag, “Mobility-based communication inwireless sensor networks,” Communications Magazine, IEEE, vol. 44,no. 7, pp. 56 – 62, july 2006.[4] C. Harnett, “Open wireless sensor network telemetry platform for mobilephones,” Sensors Journal, IEEE, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 1083 –1084, 2010.[5] J. Lifton, M. Mittal, M. Lapinski, and J. A. Paradiso, “Tricorder: Amobile sensor network browser,” in Proceedings of the ACM CHI 2007Conference - Mobile Spatial Interaction Workshop, April 2007.[6] M. Ringwald, M. Yu¨cel, and K. Ro¨mer, “Demo abstract: Interactive in-field inspection of wsns,” in Adjunct Proceedings of the 3rd EuropeanWorkshop on Wireless Sensor Networks (EWSN 2006), Zurich, Switzer-land, Feb. 2006.[7] B. OFlynn, A. Lynch, K. Aherne, P. Angove, J. Barton, S. Harte,C. OMathuna, D. Diamond, and F. Regan, “The tyndall mote. en-abling wireless research and practical sensor application development,”in Advances in Pervasive Computing, Adjunct Proceedings of the 4thInternational Conference on Pervasive Computing, 2006, pp. 21–26.[8] Libelium opens access to bluetooth wire-less sensor networks. [Online]. Available:http://www.libelium.com/libeliumworld/articles/101321320500[9] G. Giorgetti, G. Manes, J. H. Lewis, S. T. Mastroianni, and S. K. S.Gupta, “The personal sensor network: a user-centric monitoring solution,”in BodyNets ’07: Proceedings of the ICST 2nd international conferenceon Body area networks. ICST, Brussels, Belgium: ICST, 2007, pp. 1–2.

IEEE Sensors Journal

A mobile gateway for remote interaction with wireless sensor networks

Research Repository at University College Dublin

Title A mobile gateway for remote interaction with wireless sensor networksAuthors(s) Angove, Philip, O'Grady, Michael J., Hayes, Jer, O'Flynn, Brendan, O'Hare, G. M. P. (Greg M. P.), Diamond, DermotPublication date 2011-06-09Publication information Angove, Philip, Michael J. O’Grady, Jer Hayes, Brendan O’Flynn, G. M. P. (Greg M. P.) O’Hare, and Dermot Diamond. “A Mobile Gateway for Remote Interaction with Wireless Sensor Networks” PP, no. 99 (June 9, 2011).Publisher IEEEItem record/more informationhttp://hdl.handle.net/10197/3196Publisher's statement Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Publisher's version (DOI) 10.1109/JSEN.2011.2159199Downloaded 2023-10-06T13:54:56ZThe UCD community has made this article openly available. Please share how this accessbenefits you. Your story matters! (@ucd_oa)© Some rights reserved. For more informationIEEE SENSORS JOURNAL 1A Mobile Gateway for Remote Interaction withWireless Sensor NetworksPhilip Angove, Michael O’Grady, Senior Member, IEEE, Jer Hayes, Member, IEEE,Brendan O’Flynn, Member, IEEE, Gregory O’Hare, and Dermot DiamondAbstract—Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) almost invariablysupport a centralised network management model. Though thedata gathering function is conducted remotely, such data isusually routed via data sinks to central servers for processing,storage, visualisation and interpretation. However, the issue ofsupporting remote access to WSNs and individual sensor nodeswhilst in their physical environment has not been viewed as apriority. It is envisaged that this situation will change as WSNsproliferate in a range of domains, and the potential for supportinginnovative revenue-generating services manifest themselves. As astep towards realising such access, a mobile gateway has beendesigned and implemented. This gateway supports Zigbee as thisis the predominant protocol supported by WSNs. Furthermore,it also supports Bluetooth, thereby facilitating interaction withconventional mobile devices. The gateway is programmableaccording to the needs of arbitrary services and applications.Index Terms—Wireless Sensor Networks, remote accessI. INTRODUCTIONCONVENTIONAL perceptions of Wireless Sensor Net-work (WSN) configurations are inherently centralised,ensuring all key activities including processing and storage,take place at a centralised location. However, there are situa-tions where interactions with individual sensor nodes may beessential. An exemplar case is that of WSN Operations andMaintenance (O&M). When deployed in a physical environ-ment, the performance of a WSN will inevitably deteriorateover time. Eventually, situations will emerge that demand op-eratives visit the network in the field (Figure 1). Fundamentalto remote O&M is a means for interaction with the WSNthrough individual nodes. The issue of incompatible protocolsis a key barrier to enabling remote access via conventionalmobile phones. To remedy this, a mobile gateway has beenimplemented, that, when placed in a WSN field, enablescommunications between mobile phones and WSN nodes.A. Related ResearchMobile WSN nodes are not a new concept, and havebeen proposed for remedying a number of inherent problemswith WSNs including data collection [1], network operationallifetime [2] and connectivity [3]. The potential of mobileP. Angove and B. O’Flynn are with the Tyndall National Institute, e-mail:{philip.angove, brendan.oflynn} @tyndall.ie.M. O’Grady and G. O’Hare are with CLARITY:Centre for Sensor WebTechnologies, University College Dublin, e-mail: {michael.j.ogrady, gre-gory.ohare} @ucd.ie.D. Diamond and J. Hayes are with CLARITY:Centre for SensorWeb Technologies, Dublin City University, e-mail: dermot.diamond@dcu.ie,HAYESJER@ie.ibm.comFig. 1. Using the Mobile Gateway to access a WSN. In this case, part ofthe network has become isolated, requiring physical intervention.phones as a means of connecting WSNs to the internet hasbeen explored by Harnett [4] amongst others. Likewise, theissue of interaction between phones and sensor nodes hasbeen explored by Lifton [5] and Ringwald [6], though in eachcase, the solution is closely tied to individual technologies.The mobile gateway described here is a generic solution,supporting Zigbee, the most common protocol supported byWSNs, and Bluetooth, which is available on practically allmobile devices.II. A MOBILE GATEWAYTo enable practical remote sensor node connectivity, amobile Bluetooth (BT) gateway resident on a WSN back-bone, for example Zigbee, and utilizing a stackable modularconnector system [7] [8] thereby enabling interchangeability(for example, an alternative 433MHz RF layer) was envis-aged (Figure 2). The standard Bluetooth module UniversalAsynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART) connection to anonboard device micro-controller and the use of the Serial PortProfile (SPP) does not meet the low-power sleep requirementsin long term WSN deployments. To overcome these powerissues, an architecture with sensor RF (ZigBee) acting asMaster, and thereby being in control of data transfer, wasproposed. An application deployed on a smart phone (slave)can be configured for continuously polling or sniffing for anyavailable sensor data whilst on the move. To enable reliablepower-efficient communications, a serial protocol, with handshaking, residing on top of the standard Bluetooth protocolstack, was proposed. The Virtual COM port connection to thewithin-range discoverable sensor devices can subsequently berelinquished following successful data transfer. Thus a Masterrole for WSN nodes is seen as the most power-efficient methodon battery-constrained sensor node devices, whereby mobileIEEE SENSORS JOURNAL 2Fig. 2. Schemetic of the Mobile Gateway illustrating both the mobile device and mobile WSN gateway components.device can remain in sniff mode (as a discoverable slave),scanning for nearby nodes. This is of particular importance inthe case of low duty cycle nodes that remove BT power to saveenergy. Serial communications protocol ensures successful BTtransmission, that is, Quality of Service (QoS), with minimumpower by utilising a handshaking command set, including, inaddition to Request To Send (RTS), Clear To Send (CTS),pause, start of frame and End of File (EOF) eliminators.Waspmote [9], recently released from Libelium, has a sim-ilar hybrid RF architecture, with a radio power-off feature;however it remains unclear how practical resource-constrainedcommunications can be implemented, for example by using aserial protocol on top of the BT stack. Similarly [10] discussa BT module approach with simple modifications to a TelosBgateway involving direct data forwarding to both the UniversalSerial Bus (USB) port and the BT module. While the BT mod-ule can be placed in sniff mode, a possible limitation may bethe considerable gateway power usage. Utilising the discussedBT power minimization and serial protocol, BT can be used forWSN sensor data or firmware upgrades. The solution describedhere involves a Roving Networks (RN-21) Bluetooth 2.0/EDRClass1 Module, combined with sensors for Carbon Monox-ide (CO) and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) amongstothers. A sample GUI application was developed to displaysensor data and to poll periodically for any available in-range discoverable connection requests from sensor networks.Consequently, Over-the-air upgrades of nodes is possible.Hybrid BT / ZigBee networks have been implemented albeitwith limited support for pluggable low-power gateways. Thissolution represents a more realistic approach for remotelydeployed networks where mains-powered gateways are not anoption. Also, the pluggable nature allows optimal positioningof gateways for best mobile RF connectivity.III. CONCLUSIONIn this paper, the design and implementation of a mobilegateway for supporting remote interaction with WSN nodeshas been described. Such a facility is essential for O&Moperations in geographically disperse WSNs, and opens op-portunities for new WSN-based services.ACKNOWLEDGMENTThe support of the National Access Program (NAP) pro-vided by the Tyndall National Institute, and that of ScienceFoundation Ireland under grant 07/CE/I1147 is acknowledged.REFERENCES[1] F.-J. Wu, C.-F. Huang, and Y.-C. Tseng, “Data gathering by mobilemules in a spatially separated wireless sensor network,” in Proceedingsof the Tenth International Conference on Mobile Data Management:Systems, Services and Middleware. Washington, DC, USA: IEEEComputer Society, 2009, pp. 293–298.[2] Y. Yang, M. I. Fonoage, and M. Cardei, “Improving network lifetimewith mobile wireless sensor networks,” Computer Communications,vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 409 – 419, 2010.[3] E. Ekici, Y. Gu, and D. Bozdag, “Mobility-based communication inwireless sensor networks,” IEEE Communications, vol. 44, no. 7, pp.56 – 62, July 2006.[4] C. Harnett, “Open wireless sensor network telemetry platform for mobilephones,” IEEE Sensors J., vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 1083 –1084, 2010.[5] J. Lifton, M. Mittal, M. Lapinski, and J. A. Paradiso, “Tricorder: Amobile sensor network browser,” in Proceedings of the ACM CHI 2007Conference - Mobile Spatial Interaction Workshop, April 2007.[6] M. Ringwald, M. Yücel, and K. Römer, “Demo abstract: Interactive in-field inspection of wsns,” in Adjunct Proceedings of the 3rd EuropeanWorkshop on Wireless Sensor Networks, Zurich, Switzerland, 2006.[7] B. O’Flynn, A. Lynch, K. Aherne, P. Angove, J. Barton, S. Harte,C. O’Mathuna, D. Diamond, and F. Regan, “The tyndall mote. enablingwireless research and practical sensor application development,” inAdjunct Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on PervasiveComputing, 2006, pp. 21–26.[8] The 25mm Tyndall Mote. [Online]. Available: http://www.tyndall.ie/mai/25mm.htm[9] Libelium opens access to bluetooth wireless sensor networks.[Online]. Available: http://www.libelium.com/libeliumworld/articles/101321320500[10] G. Giorgetti, G. Manes, J. H. Lewis, S. T. Mastroianni, and S. K. S.Gupta, “The personal sensor network: a user-centric monitoring so-lution,” in BodyNets ’07: Proceedings of the ICST 2nd internationalconference on Body area networks. ICST, Brussels, Belgium: ICST,2007, pp. 1–2.

Research Repository UCD

Title A mobile gateway for remote interaction with wireless sensor networksAuthors(s) Angove, Philip, O'Grady, Michael J., Hayes, Jer, O'Flynn, Brendan, O'Hare, G. M. P. (Greg M. P.), Diamond, DermotPublication date 2011-06-09Publication information Angove, Philip, Michael J. O’Grady, Jer Hayes, Brendan O’Flynn, G. M. P. (Greg M. P.) O’Hare, and Dermot Diamond. “A Mobile Gateway for Remote Interaction with Wireless Sensor Networks” PP, no. 99 (June 9, 2011).Publisher IEEEItem record/more informationhttp://hdl.handle.net/10197/3196Publisher's statement Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Publisher's version (DOI) 10.1109/JSEN.2011.2159199Downloaded 2023-11-01T04:02:15ZThe UCD community has made this article openly available. Please share how this accessbenefits you. Your story matters! (@ucd_oa)© Some rights reserved. For more informationIEEE SENSORS JOURNAL 1A Mobile Gateway for Remote Interaction withWireless Sensor NetworksPhilip Angove, Michael O’Grady, Senior Member, IEEE, Jer Hayes, Member, IEEE,Brendan O’Flynn, Member, IEEE, Gregory O’Hare, and Dermot DiamondAbstract—Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) almost invariablysupport a centralised network management model. Though thedata gathering function is conducted remotely, such data isusually routed via data sinks to central servers for processing,storage, visualisation and interpretation. However, the issue ofsupporting remote access to WSNs and individual sensor nodeswhilst in their physical environment has not been viewed as apriority. It is envisaged that this situation will change as WSNsproliferate in a range of domains, and the potential for supportinginnovative revenue-generating services manifest themselves. As astep towards realising such access, a mobile gateway has beendesigned and implemented. This gateway supports Zigbee as thisis the predominant protocol supported by WSNs. Furthermore,it also supports Bluetooth, thereby facilitating interaction withconventional mobile devices. The gateway is programmableaccording to the needs of arbitrary services and applications.Index Terms—Wireless Sensor Networks, remote accessI. INTRODUCTIONCONVENTIONAL perceptions of Wireless Sensor Net-work (WSN) configurations are inherently centralised,ensuring all key activities including processing and storage,take place at a centralised location. However, there are situa-tions where interactions with individual sensor nodes may beessential. An exemplar case is that of WSN Operations andMaintenance (O&M). When deployed in a physical environ-ment, the performance of a WSN will inevitably deteriorateover time. Eventually, situations will emerge that demand op-eratives visit the network in the field (Figure 1). Fundamentalto remote O&M is a means for interaction with the WSNthrough individual nodes. The issue of incompatible protocolsis a key barrier to enabling remote access via conventionalmobile phones. To remedy this, a mobile gateway has beenimplemented, that, when placed in a WSN field, enablescommunications between mobile phones and WSN nodes.A. Related ResearchMobile WSN nodes are not a new concept, and havebeen proposed for remedying a number of inherent problemswith WSNs including data collection [1], network operationallifetime [2] and connectivity [3]. The potential of mobileP. Angove and B. O’Flynn are with the Tyndall National Institute, e-mail:{philip.angove, brendan.oflynn} @tyndall.ie.M. O’Grady and G. O’Hare are with CLARITY:Centre for Sensor WebTechnologies, University College Dublin, e-mail: {michael.j.ogrady, gre-gory.ohare} @ucd.ie.D. Diamond and J. Hayes are with CLARITY:Centre for SensorWeb Technologies, Dublin City University, e-mail: dermot.diamond@dcu.ie,HAYESJER@ie.ibm.comFig. 1. Using the Mobile Gateway to access a WSN. In this case, part ofthe network has become isolated, requiring physical intervention.phones as a means of connecting WSNs to the internet hasbeen explored by Harnett [4] amongst others. Likewise, theissue of interaction between phones and sensor nodes hasbeen explored by Lifton [5] and Ringwald [6], though in eachcase, the solution is closely tied to individual technologies.The mobile gateway described here is a generic solution,supporting Zigbee, the most common protocol supported byWSNs, and Bluetooth, which is available on practically allmobile devices.II. A MOBILE GATEWAYTo enable practical remote sensor node connectivity, amobile Bluetooth (BT) gateway resident on a WSN back-bone, for example Zigbee, and utilizing a stackable modularconnector system [7] [8] thereby enabling interchangeability(for example, an alternative 433MHz RF layer) was envis-aged (Figure 2). The standard Bluetooth module UniversalAsynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART) connection to anonboard device micro-controller and the use of the Serial PortProfile (SPP) does not meet the low-power sleep requirementsin long term WSN deployments. To overcome these powerissues, an architecture with sensor RF (ZigBee) acting asMaster, and thereby being in control of data transfer, wasproposed. An application deployed on a smart phone (slave)can be configured for continuously polling or sniffing for anyavailable sensor data whilst on the move. To enable reliablepower-efficient communications, a serial protocol, with handshaking, residing on top of the standard Bluetooth protocolstack, was proposed. The Virtual COM port connection to thewithin-range discoverable sensor devices can subsequently berelinquished following successful data transfer. Thus a Masterrole for WSN nodes is seen as the most power-efficient methodon battery-constrained sensor node devices, whereby mobileIEEE SENSORS JOURNAL 2Fig. 2. Schemetic of the Mobile Gateway illustrating both the mobile device and mobile WSN gateway components.device can remain in sniff mode (as a discoverable slave),scanning for nearby nodes. This is of particular importance inthe case of low duty cycle nodes that remove BT power to saveenergy. Serial communications protocol ensures successful BTtransmission, that is, Quality of Service (QoS), with minimumpower by utilising a handshaking command set, including, inaddition to Request To Send (RTS), Clear To Send (CTS),pause, start of frame and End of File (EOF) eliminators.Waspmote [9], recently released from Libelium, has a sim-ilar hybrid RF architecture, with a radio power-off feature;however it remains unclear how practical resource-constrainedcommunications can be implemented, for example by using aserial protocol on top of the BT stack. Similarly [10] discussa BT module approach with simple modifications to a TelosBgateway involving direct data forwarding to both the UniversalSerial Bus (USB) port and the BT module. While the BT mod-ule can be placed in sniff mode, a possible limitation may bethe considerable gateway power usage. Utilising the discussedBT power minimization and serial protocol, BT can be used forWSN sensor data or firmware upgrades. The solution describedhere involves a Roving Networks (RN-21) Bluetooth 2.0/EDRClass1 Module, combined with sensors for Carbon Monox-ide (CO) and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) amongstothers. A sample GUI application was developed to displaysensor data and to poll periodically for any available in-range discoverable connection requests from sensor networks.Consequently, Over-the-air upgrades of nodes is possible.Hybrid BT / ZigBee networks have been implemented albeitwith limited support for pluggable low-power gateways. Thissolution represents a more realistic approach for remotelydeployed networks where mains-powered gateways are not anoption. Also, the pluggable nature allows optimal positioningof gateways for best mobile RF connectivity.III. CONCLUSIONIn this paper, the design and implementation of a mobilegateway for supporting remote interaction with WSN nodeshas been described. Such a facility is essential for O&Moperations in geographically disperse WSNs, and opens op-portunities for new WSN-based services.ACKNOWLEDGMENTThe support of the National Access Program (NAP) pro-vided by the Tyndall National Institute, and that of ScienceFoundation Ireland under grant 07/CE/I1147 is acknowledged.REFERENCES[1] F.-J. Wu, C.-F. Huang, and Y.-C. Tseng, “Data gathering by mobilemules in a spatially separated wireless sensor network,” in Proceedingsof the Tenth International Conference on Mobile Data Management:Systems, Services and Middleware. Washington, DC, USA: IEEEComputer Society, 2009, pp. 293–298.[2] Y. Yang, M. I. Fonoage, and M. Cardei, “Improving network lifetimewith mobile wireless sensor networks,” Computer Communications,vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 409 – 419, 2010.[3] E. Ekici, Y. Gu, and D. Bozdag, “Mobility-based communication inwireless sensor networks,” IEEE Communications, vol. 44, no. 7, pp.56 – 62, July 2006.[4] C. Harnett, “Open wireless sensor network telemetry platform for mobilephones,” IEEE Sensors J., vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 1083 –1084, 2010.[5] J. Lifton, M. Mittal, M. Lapinski, and J. A. Paradiso, “Tricorder: Amobile sensor network browser,” in Proceedings of the ACM CHI 2007Conference - Mobile Spatial Interaction Workshop, April 2007.[6] M. Ringwald, M. Yücel, and K. Römer, “Demo abstract: Interactive in-field inspection of wsns,” in Adjunct Proceedings of the 3rd EuropeanWorkshop on Wireless Sensor Networks, Zurich, Switzerland, 2006.[7] B. O’Flynn, A. Lynch, K. Aherne, P. Angove, J. Barton, S. Harte,C. O’Mathuna, D. Diamond, and F. Regan, “The tyndall mote. enablingwireless research and practical sensor application development,” inAdjunct Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on PervasiveComputing, 2006, pp. 21–26.[8] The 25mm Tyndall Mote. [Online]. Available: http://www.tyndall.ie/mai/25mm.htm[9] Libelium opens access to bluetooth wireless sensor networks.[Online]. Available: http://www.libelium.com/libeliumworld/articles/101321320500[10] G. Giorgetti, G. Manes, J. H. Lewis, S. T. Mastroianni, and S. K. S.Gupta, “The personal sensor network: a user-centric monitoring so-lution,” in BodyNets ’07: Proceedings of the ICST 2nd internationalconference on Body area networks. ICST, Brussels, Belgium: ICST,2007, pp. 1–2.

O\u27Grady, Michael J.

O\u27Flynn, Brendan

O\u27Hare, G. M. P. (Greg M. P.)

Irish Universities

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) almost invariably
support a centralised network management model. Though the
data gathering function is conducted remotely, such data is
usually routed via data sinks to central servers for processing, storage, visualisation and interpretation. However, the issue of supporting remote access to WSNs and individual sensor nodes whilst in their physical environment has not been viewed as a priority. It is envisaged that this situation will change as WSNs
proliferate in a range of domains, and the potential for supporting innovative revenue-generating services manifest themselves. As a step towards realising such access, a mobile gateway has been designed and implemented. This gateway supports Zigbee as this is the predominant protocol supported by WSNs. Furthermore, it also supports Bluetooth, thereby facilitating interaction with conventional mobile devices. The gateway is programmable according to the needs of arbitrary services and applications

O\u27Hare, Gregory M.P.

P. Angove

M. O'Grady

J. Hayes

B. O'Flynn

G. M. P. O'Hare

D. Diamond

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A Mobile Gateway for Remote Interaction With Wireless Sensor Networks

http://researchrepository.ucd.ie/bitstreams/3cc61903-ecd4-4293-9f2e-cd5533ec8072/download

A mobile gateway for remote interaction with wireless sensor networks

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