Wireless Sensor Network

Prabhakar Dhekne

Bhabha Atomic Research Centre

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 1

 Why Talk About Wireless?
 Wireless communication is not a new technology but cell phones
have brought revolution in wireless communication
 Wireless Technology has changed the way
 Organizations & individuals work & live today

 In less than 10 years

 World has moved from fixed to wireless networks
 Allowing people, mobile devices & computers talk to each other, connect
without a cable
 Only available option for field data acquisition
 Interconnectivity with multiple devices
 Using radio-waves, sometimes light
 Frees user from many constrains of traditional computer & phone system

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 2

 Ubiquitous Computing
 Future State of Computing Technology?
 Mobile, many computers
 Small Processors
 Low Power Consumption
 Relatively Low Cost

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 3

 Ubiquitous Computing
 Small, mobile, inexpensive computers…..everywhere!
 Fade into the background of everyday life
 Computers everywhere provides potential for data
collection….sensors!
 Temperature
 Light
 Sound
 Motion
 Pressure
 Many others!!!

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 4

 Growth in Wireless Systems
 Rapid growth in cellular voice services

Cell phones everywhere!
 Several wireless technology options have been available for the
last ~10-20 yrs
 mini cell stations using existing standards like CDMA or

GSM
 wireless PABX using PCS standards such as DECT or

PHS/PACS
 satellite and microwave backhaul

 Above solutions OK for voice & low-speed data, but do not

meet emerging needs for broadband access and mobile data
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 5
 Mobile Healthcare Technologies

Mobile Healthcare can be regarded as

the integration of technologies of
medical sensors, mobile computing,
and wireless communications into a
system of medical assistance.

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 7

 Application Examples
 Monitoring of patient’s vital signs
 Diabetes
 Asthma
 Hypertension
 ECG
 Predictive usage in order to minimize
the needs for medication
 Improving the quality of life

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 8

 Potential Benefits
 Increasing the physician productivity and
efficiency.
 Wireless sensors enable the patients’ freedom
of movements and therefore promote new
ways of monitoring the patient.
 Providing clinicians remote access to patient’s
information eliminates the need to manually
locate and search through patient’s data.
 Enabling telemonitoring in emergency
scenarios and making remote diagnosis
possible.

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 9

 Mobile Healthcare

The provision of Real Time patient care.

 No matter where the clinician is
 No matter where the patient is
 To apply physiological and medical knowledge,
advanced diagnostics, simulations, and effector systems
integrated with information and telecommunications for
the purposes of enhancing operational and medical
decision-making, improving medical training, and
delivering medical treatment across all barriers

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 10

 Typical Demo System
 The patient is provided with a wearable
wireless sensor. The signal from the sensor is
captured in a Node situated in a mobile
phone.
 The system allows ubiquitous access to
patient’s data and medical information in
real-time via the mobile phone.
 The medical data is stored & processed in a
server, and can be used for establishing
diagnostics and treatments.

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 11

 Application server
 Application server centralises the
received data and presents it to the user
as:
 Raw data
 Formatted as graphs

App Server

DB

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 12

 Wireless Technology
 Emerging mainstream wireless technologies provide powerful building blocks for
next-generation applications
 WLAN (IEEE 802.11 “WiFi”) hot-spots for broadband access, Bluetooth
 PDAs and laptops with integrated WLANs

 Broadband Wireless access technology- MAN (Alternative to DSL)

 IEEE 802.16 10-30 Km 40 Mbps WiMax

 Wide area wireless data also growing

 SMS, GPRS, Edge, CDMA2000 1xEV-DO (2.4 Mbps data optimized)

 Variety of interesting devices (e.g. Treo, Sidekick)

 Networking of embedded devices

 Smart spaces, sensor networks (IEEE 802.15.4a- ZigBee)
 Context-aware mobile data services and web caching for information
services
 Wireless sensor nets for monitoring and control
 VOIP for integrated voice services over wireless data networks
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 13
 IrDA: P2P wireless
 Infra-red Data Association
 Based on Half Duplex Point-to-Point concept
 Frequency below the red end of spectrum
making it invisible
 Eliminate the need for cables
 Clear line-of-sight
 Short-range (few meters)
 Simplest, most prevailing wireless standard
 No fixed speed 9.6 Kbps, 4Mbps
 Discovery Mode to find out data rate, size
 Token based transmission
 IrDA ports on PDA, Laptops USB sticks
 Remote Control in TV, VCR, Air-conditioner
Port costs less than Rs. 1000

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 14

 Bluetooth: Wireless PAN
 Bluetooth (Named after Danish King
Harold Bluetooth)
 Based on Master-Slave concept
 Short-range (10 meters)
 Eliminate the need for cables M1
S2
 Operates in 2.4 GHz ISM band S1
 720 Kbps S1
M 1/S1 S2
 Three modes of operation park/hold/sniff
 Piconet & Scatternet (master+7 slaves)
 Interference due to multiple piconets and
IEEE 802.15.1 home/person LAN Piconet 1 Piconet 2
 To eliminate interference frequency
hoping technique used
 Ominidirectional with both voice & data
Port costs about Rs. 2000
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 15
 Wi-Fi: Wireless LAN (Hot Spot)
 Wireless Fidelity based LAN
 Most popular on Laptops
 Replacement to wired LAN
 Connectivity on the move
 Short-range (100 meters)
 Ad Hoc and Base station mode
 Security provided at physical layer
 Operates in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz
 Collection of IEEE standards
802.11a/b/g 11 Mpbs & 54 Mbps
Ad Hoc Access  Low range, requires more power
Net Point Net hence not suitable for PDA’s
 Difficult to control access & security
 Set up is expensive

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 16

 Wi-Max: Wireless MAN

 Wireless Max
 High Speed 40-70 Mbps
 Mid-range (30 Kmeters)
 Eliminate the need for cables
 Saving of wired cost
 Operates in 2.4 GHz ISM band
 IEEE standard 802.16

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 17

 Issues in Wireless Networking

 Infrastructured networks
 Handoff
 location management (mobile IP)
 channel assignment

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 18

Issues in Wireless Networking
Infrastructureless networks
Wireless MAC
 Security (integrity, authentication,

confidentiality)
 Ad Hoc Routing Protocols

 Multicasting and Broadcasting

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 19

 Indoor Environments
 Three popular technologies
- High Speed Wireless LANs (802.11b (2.4GHz,
11 Mbps), 802.11a (5GHz, 54 Mbps & higher)
- Wireless Personal area Networks PANs (IEEE
804.14)
 HomeRF

 Bluetooth, 802.15

- Wireless device networks

 Sensor networks, wirelessly networked robots
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 20
 What is an Ad hoc Network
 Collection of mobile wireless nodes forming a
network without the aid of any infrastructure or
centralized administration
 Nodes have limited transmission range
 Nodes act as a routers

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 21

 Ad Hoc Networks
• Disaster recovery
• Battlefield
• ‘Smart’ office

 Rapidly deployable
infrastructure
 Wireless: cabling impractical
 Ad-Hoc: no advance planning
 Backbone network: • Network of access devices
wireless IP routers • Wireless: untethered
• Ad-hoc: random deployment
• Edge network: Sensor networks,
Personal Area Networks (PANs), etc.

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 22

 Ad Hoc Network
 Characteristics
 Dynamic topologies
 Limited channel bandwidth
 Variable capacity links
 Energy-constrained operation
 Limited physical security
 Applications
 Military battlefield networks
 Personal Area Networks (PAN)
 Disaster and rescue operation
 Peer to peer networks
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 23
 Security Challenges in Ad
Hoc Networks
 Lack of Infrastructure or centralized control
 Key management becomes difficult
 Dynamic topology
 Challenging to design sophisticated & secure routing
protocols
 Communication through Radio Waves
 Difficult to prevent eavesdropping
 Vulnerabilities of routing mechanism
 Non-cooperation of nodes
 Vulnerabilities of nodes
 Captured or Compromised
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 24
 Security
 Challenges in ad hoc network security
 The nodes are constantly mobile
 The protocols implemented are co-operative in nature
 There is a lack of a fixed infrastructure to collect audit data
 No clear distinction between normalcy and anomaly in ad hoc
networks
 Secure the Routing Mechanism
 A mechanism that satisfies security attributes like authentication,
confidentiality, non-repudiation and integrity
 Secure the Key Management Scheme
 Robust key certification and key distribution mechanism

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 25

 Services while on move
Sensor services services
exercise monitor
biometrics Calendar+ service
traffic information Integrate dynamic traffic & schedule
Doctor prescription service
track health indicators
Doctor write prescription
Follow me kiosk service
Sensors mobile devices receive and transmit messages
Fridge & shopping service
Fridge records stock
Scalable, reliable, consistent, Suggests shopping based on recipe
Shopping guide in store

distributed service

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 26

 Tourist guide
 Stuttgart tourist guide
 Like MapQuest except on mobile device
 Mapping local interests
 Museums historical sites
 Shopping & restaurants Sample Data
 Small text with description, operating
hours
 Local map

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 27

 How it works
 Info station
 Island of wireless station
 Embedded in area
 Users have cheap low bandwidth components
 Integrated to network with high quality connection
 Requires some overlap to manage transition
between stations for hand off
 Scaleable by load balancing
 Each center contains unique information
 Overhead of communication
 Initialize externally specified; adjusts quickly

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 28

Map-on-the-move
 Provide appropriate map
 County resolution driving in car
 Info stations small area high bandwidth
 Remainder lower bandwidth

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 29

 Problems in a Mobile
Environment

 Variable Bandwidth
 Disconnected Operation
 Limited Power
 Implications on distributed file
system support?

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 30

 Constraints in mobile
computing
 PDA vs. Laptop vs. cell phones
 Cellular modem connection: Failure prone
 Space: office vs. city vs. county
 Not continuous connectivity required
 Data such as pictures text files not
streaming audio and video
 Heterogeneous devices

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 31

 MANET: Mobile Ad hoc Networks
A collection of wireless mobile nodes dynamically forming a
network without any existing infrastructure and the relative
position dictate communication links (dynamically changing).

From DARPA Website

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 32
 Rapidly Deployable Networks
 Failure of communication networks is a critical problem faced
by first responders at a disaster site
 major switches and routers serving the region often damaged
 cellular cell towers may survive, but suffer from traffic overload and
dependence on (damaged) wired infrastructure for backhaul
 In addition, existing networks even if they survive may not be
optimized for services needed at site
 significant increase in mobile phone traffic needs to be served
 first responders need access to data services (email, www,...)
 new requirements for peer-to-peer communication, sensor net or
robotic control at the site
 Motivates need for rapidly deployable networks that meet both
the above needs -> recent advances in wireless technology can be
harnessed to provide significant new capabilities
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 33
 Infostations Prototype: System for
Rapid Deployment Applications
 Outdoor Infostations with
radio backhaul
 for first responders to set up
wireless communications
infrastructure at a disaster site
 provides WLAN services and access
to cached data
 wireless backhaul link

includes data cache
 Project for development of:
 high-speed short-range radios
 802.11 MAC enhancements
 content caching algorithm &
software
 hardware integration including solar
panels, antennas and embedded
computing device with WLAN card
WINLAB’s Outdoor Infostations Prototype (2002)
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 34
 Ad-Hoc Wireless Network
 A flexible, open-architecture ad-hoc WLAN and sensor network testbed ...
 open-source Linux routers, AP’s and terminals (commercial hardware)

 Linux and embedded OS forwarding and sensor nodes (custom)

 radio link and global network monitoring/visualization tools

 prototype ad-hoc discovery and routing protocols

802.11b
Management PDA
stations
Radio Monitor
802.11b
Forwarding Node/AP Linux PC
AP (custom)
Commercial
Router network 802.11
Compute
with arbitrary topology
& storage
servers
Sensor Node
PC-based (custom)
August 24, 2006
PC Linux router Talk at SASTRA 35
 What is a WSN?
Sensor: The device Observer: The end user/computer

Phenomenon: The entity of interest to the observer

 A network that is formed when a set of small sensor devices

that are deployed in an “ad hoc fashion” no predefined
routes, cooperate for sensing a physical phenomenon.
 A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of base stations
and a number of wireless sensors.
 Is simple, tiny, inexpensive, and battery-powered

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 36

 Why Wireless Sensors Now?
 Moore’s Law is making sufficient CPU performance
available with low power requirements in a small size.
 Research in Materials Science has resulted in novel sensing
materials for many Chemical, Biological, and Physical
sensing tasks.
 Transceivers for wireless devices are becoming smaller,
less expensive, and less power hungry (low power tiny
Radio Chips).
 Power source improvements in batteries, as well as passive
power sources such as solar or vibration energy, are
expanding application options.
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 37
 Typical Sensor Node Features
 A sensor node has:
 Sensing Material

 Physical – Magnetic, Light, Sound

 Chemical – CO, Chemical Weapons
 Biological – Bacteria, Viruses, Proteins
 Integrated Circuitry (VLSI)
 A-to-D converter from sensor to circuitry
 Packaging for environmental safety
 Power Supply
 Passive – Solar, Vibration
 Active – Battery power, RF Inductance

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 38

 Sensor Node Hardware
Sensor + Actuator + ADC + Microprocessor + Powering Unit
+ Communication Unit (RF Transceiver) + GPS
1Kbps- 1Mbps
3m-300m
Transceiver Lossy Transmission

128Kb-1Mb
Limited Storage Memory
Embedded 8 bit, 10 MHz
Processor Slow Computation

Requires
Supervision Sensor
Multiple sensors Limited Lifetime
Battery

 Portable and self-sustained (power, communication, intelligence).

 Capable of embedded complex data processing.

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 39

Sensors and Wireless Radio
 Types of sensors:
-Pressure,
-Temperature
-Light
-Biological
-Chemical
-Strain, fatigue
-Tilt
 Capable to survive harsh
environments (heat, humidity,
corrosion, pollution etc).
 No source of interference to
systems being monitored and/or
surrounding systems.
 Could be deployed in large
numbers.
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 40
Wireless Sensor Networks
 ZigBee Wireless Communication
Protocol
 Based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard
 Small form factor
 Relatively Inexpensive
 Low Power Consumption
 Low Data Rate of Communication
 Self Organising, Self-Healing…multi-
hop nodes
 Integrated Sensors
 Ideal for Wireless Sensor Network
Applications

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 41

 WSN APPLICATIONS
 Potential for new intelligent applications:
 Smart Homes
 Process monitoring and control
 Security/Surveillance
 Environmental Monitoring
 Construction
 Medical/Healthcare

 Implemented with Wireless Sensor Networks!

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 42

 Medical and Healthcare Appln
Remote
Databases

Backbone
Backbone
Net Switch Network
Network

In Hospital
Physician Net Switch

Wireless Remote
consultation

Possibility for Remote consulting

(including Audio Visual communication)

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 43

 Medical and Healthcare
Applications

Sensors equipped
with BlueTooth

August 24, 2006 Source: USC Web Site

Talk at SASTRA 44
 iBadge - UCLA
 Investigate behavior of children/patient
 Features:
 Speech recording / replaying
 Position detection

 Direction detection / estimation (compass)

 Weather data: Temperature, Humidity,

Pressure, Light

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 45

 Other Examples
 MIT d'Arbeloff Lab – The ring sensor
 Monitors the physiological status of the
wearer and transmits the information to
the medical professional over the Internet
 Oak Ridge National Laboratory
 Nose-on-a-chip is a MEMS-based sensor
 It can detect 400 species of gases and
transmit a signal indicating the level to a
central control station
 VERICHIP: Miniaturised, Implanted,
Identification Technology

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 46

 Structural Health Monitoring
Accelerometer board prototype,
Ruiz-Sandoval, Nagayama & Spencer,
Civil E., U. Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Semi-active Hydraulic Damper

Model bridge with attached wireless sensors, (SHD), Kajima Corporation, Japan
B.F. Spencer’s Lab, Civil E., U. Illinois U-C
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 47
 Application in Environment
Monitoring
 Measuring pollutant
Pollutants monitored by sensors in

concentration the river

 Pass on information
to monitoring station
 Predict current ST

location of pollutant
volume based on Sensors report to the base
monitoring station

various parameters
 Take corrective action

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 48

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 49
 Vehicular Traffic Control

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 50

 Project at The University of California, Davis

US FCC allocated 5.850 to

5.925 GHz dedicated short
range communication
(DSRC)
Road side to
Vehicle
Vehicle to vehicle
communication

VMesh: Distributed Data Sensing, Relaying

, & Computing via Vehicular Wireless Mesh
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 51
 Network characteristics of WSN

 Generally, the network:

 Consists of a large number of sensors (103 to 106)
 Spread over large geographical region (radius = 1
to 103 km)
 Spaced out in 1, 2, or 3 dimensions
 Is self-organizing
 Uses wireless media
 May use intermediate “collators”

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 52

 Sensor Network Topology
 Hundreds of nodes require careful handling of topology
maintenance.
 Predeployment and deployment phase
 Numerous ways to deploy the sensors (mass, individual

placement, dropping from plane..)

 Postdeployment phase
 Factors are sensor nodes position change, reachability

due to jamming, noise, obstacles etc, available energy,

malfunctioning, theft, sabotage
 Redeployment of additional nodes phase
 Redeployment because of malfunctioning of units

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 53

 Organization into Ad Hoc Net
 Individual sensors are quite limited.
 Full potential is realized only by using a large
number of sensors.
 Sensors are then organized into an ad hoc
network.
 Need efficient protocols to route and manage
data in this network.

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 54

Network Topologies
 Star
 Single Hop Network
 All nodes communicate
directly with Gateway
 No router nodes
 Cannot self-heal
 Range 30-100m
 Consumes lowest power

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 55

 Network Topologies
 Mesh
 Multi-hopping network
 All nodes are routers
 Self-configuring network
 Node fails, network self-
heals
 Re-routes data through
shortest path
 Highly fault tolerant network
 Multi-hopping provides
much longer range
 Higher power
consumption…nodes must
always listen!

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 56

 Network Topologies
 Star-Mesh Hybrid
 Combines of star’s low
power and…
 …mesh’s self-healing and
longer range
 All endpoint sensor nodes
can communicate with
multiple routers
 Improves fault tolerance
 Increases network
communication range
 High degree of flexibility
and mobility

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 57

 Self-Organizing WLAN
 Opportunistic ad-hoc wireless networking concepts starting to mature…
 Initial use to extend WLAN range in user-deployed networks

 Based on novel auto-discovery and multi-hop routing protocols

 extends the utility and reach of low-cost/high speed WiFi equipment

Wired
WiredNetwork
Network
AP1 Infrastructure
Infrastructure AP2

802.11 Access to
AP

Ad-hoc radio link

(w/multi-hop routing
Ad-hoc
Infrastructure
links

Ad-hoc access
To FN
Forwarding
Node (FN)
Mobile Node (MN)
(end-user)
Forwarding Node (FN)
Self-organizing
Ad-hoc WLAN

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 58

 How to get information
from Data-centric Sensor Networks?
 Types of Queries:
 Historical Queries: Analysis of data collected over time
 One Time Queries: Snapshot view of the network
 Persistent Queries: Periodic monitoring at long and regular
intervals
 Routing required to respond to a Query:
 Application specific
 Data centric
 Data aggregation capability desirable
 Need to minimize energy consumption

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 59

 Software Framework

MAC layer (Tiny OS, routing)

Configuration Table

Power consumption status & replacement strategy

Sensor Data Management

Middleware

Application (passing parameters via API)

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 60

 Technical challenges

 Sensor design
 Self-organizing network, that requires 0-
configuration of sensors
 Random or planned deployment of sensors,
and collators
 Auto-addressing
 Auto-service discovery
 Sensor localization
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 61
 Power Consumption
 Limited Power Source
 Battery Lifetime is limited
 Each sensor node plays a dual role of data
originator and data router (data processor)
 The malfunctioning of a few nodes consumes
lot of energy (rerouting of packets and
significant topological changes)
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 62
 Environmental Factors
 Wireless sensors need to operate in conditions
that are not encountered by typical computing
devices:
 Rain, sleet, snow, hail, etc.
 Wide temperature variations
 May require separating sensor from electronics
 High humidity
 Saline or other corrosive substances
 High wind speeds

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 63

 Historical Comparison
Consider a 40 Year Old Computer

Model Honeywell H-300 Mica 2

Date 6/1964 7/2003

CPU 2 MHz 4 MHz

Memory 32 KB 128 KB

SRAM ??? 512 KB

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 64

 Advances in Wireless Sensor
Nodes
Consider Multiple Generations of Berkeley Motes
Model Rene 2 Rene 2 Mica Mica 2
Date 10/2000 6/2001 2/2002 7/2003
CPU 4 MHz 8 MHz 4 MHz 4 MHz
Flash
8 KB 16 KB 128 KB 128 KB
Memory
SRAM 32 KB 32 KB 512 KB 512 KB
Radio 10 Kbps 10 Kbps 40 Kbps 40 Kbps
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 65
 Summary
 Sensor networks will facilitate one to address
several societal issues:
 Early-warning systems
 Disaster mitigation
 Applications in other sectors
 Security, transportation, irrigation
 Technology is available today
 Research into new sensors
 Needs experimentation, pilot deployment
 Lots needs to be done in Software (OS, MAC, Application)
 While cost is an issue today, it will not be so tomorrow

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 66

 References
 Wireless & Mobile Systems Prof Dharma Prakash
Agrawal and H. Deng

 Integrating Wireless Technology in the Enterprise by

Williams Wheeler, Elsevier Digital Press

 Circuits & Systems for Wireless Communications Edited

by Markus Helfenstein and George S. Moschytz, Kluwer
Academic Publishers

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 67

 Any
Questions?

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 68