Overview

Distributed Sensor Networks Tutorial

Dario Rossi
dario.rossi@polito.it

Overview

Seminar Outline
Distributed Sensor Networks (DSN) Sensors as Hardware Sensors as Software
Brief history and overview Panorama of available Motes TinyOS: Operating System nesC: Programming Language TOSSIM: Simulator Environment Located near here, at ISMB

Sensors Lab

Overview

Sensor History
Early 1980s
DARPA started the DSN program Arpanet had 200 hosts Mobile nodes were carried by trucks

21st Century

DARPA funded SensIT program Internet tomography is a research field per-se SmartDust sensors fit into 1 mm3

Overview

Sensor Keywords
Sensor Hardware
Cheap, publicly-available, off-the-shelf components, modular, integrated, powerefficient, extensible, tiny Free, open-source, modular, abstract, powerefficient, extensible, small This follows from high level of integration

Sensor Software

Keywords are very similar

Overview

Sensor Devices
Necessarily cheap
Cheap is relative: actual 100-500$, target << 1$

Necessarily small
More survivable, ubiquitous, etc.

Necessarily many
Economies of scale, finer measurement granularity.

Necessarily robust
Common case: no maintenance

Necessarily low-power
No battery refill, long-term applications

Overview

Faster, Smaller, Numerous

Moores Law
Stuff (transistors, etc) doubling every 1-2 years

Bells Law
New computing class every 10 years
Streaming Data to/from the Physical World
log (people per computer)

year

Overview

Sensor Network Characteristics

Sensor networks are composed...
By a large number of devices... Highly cooperative... Densely deployed... Inside (or near) the phenomenon

Sensor placement

Does not need to be engineered/predetermined Random deployment on inaccessible terrains Implies self-organizing capabilities

Overview

Sensor Network Applications

Environment/Health Monitoring
Habitat monitoring Integrated biology Structural monitoring

Commercial, Control, Interactive

Product quality monitor Intrusion detection Pursuer-evader

Overview

Sensor Network vs Ad-hoc Networks Number of sensors is expected to be orders of magnitude bigger Sensors may not have global identification Sensors are power/CPU/memory constrained Sensors are densely deployed Sensors are prone to failure Possibly very frequent topology changes Sensor uses broadcast, ad-hoc uses point to point

Overview

Sensor Network Architecture

Sensors are usually scattered in a field User Sensors route data toward the sink Sensors relay on each other for multi-hop Sink communicates to user (task manager) through Internet (or satellite) Internet Sink

Field

Overview

Sensor Network Design Factors

Fault Tolerance Scalability Production Cost Hardware Constraints Power Consumption Network Topology Environment Transmission Media Sensor Applications
of individual sensors 102, 103, (... 106 !?) some cents will likely remain primary constraint dense and varying unattended, remote RF,infrared,optical,... need specific solution

Overview

Sensor Network Protocol Stack

Everything is integrated
Task Plane Mobility Plane Power Plane

room for cross-layer optimization!

Application Transport Network Data link Physical

Application requirements
drive routing choices... and dictate hardware!

Everything is tiny...
from the network stack... to the operating system!

Overview

References
http://www.tinyos.net J. Hill, R.Szewczyk, A.Woo, S. Hollar, D. Culler and K. Pister System architecture directions for network sensors ASPLOS 2000, Cambridge, November 2000 P. Levis, D. Gay, J.Polastre, R. Szewczyk, A. Woo, E.Brewer, D. Culler, The Emergence of Networking Abstractions and Techniques in TinyOS In Proceedings of the First USENIX/ACM Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI 2004). D.Gay, P.Levis, R. Behren, M. Welsh, E. Brewer and D. Culler, The nesC Language: A Holistic Approach to Networked Embedded Systems, In Proceedings of Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI) 2003, June 2003. P.Levis, N. Lee, M. Welsh and D. Culler TOSSIM: Accurate and Scalable Simulation of Entire TinyOS Applications, In Proceedings of the First ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys 2003).

Overview

Sensor Lab
Lab Sensor Lab Demo
4 hours block 4 groups of 5 people 1 hr per group Decide schedule

1M

At the door
Dial 6+bell-symbol Or phone 011.22.76.613