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 patients 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 patients
information eliminates the need to manually
locate and search through patients 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
patients 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
S1
720 Kbps 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 PDAs
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 Network of access devices
planning Wireless: untethered
Backbone network: Ad-hoc: random deployment
wireless IP routers 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 WINLABs 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, APs 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?
Moores 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-Healingmulti-
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
Net Switch 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. Spencers Lab, Civil E., U. Illinois U-C
August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 47
 Application in Environment
Monitoring
Measuring pollutant
concentration
Pollutants monitored by sensors in
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
Networks
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
consumptionnodes must
always listen!

August 24, 2006 Talk at SASTRA 56

 Network Topologies
Star-Mesh Hybrid
Combines of stars low
power and
meshs 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 Network
AP1 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