Wireless Sensor Networks: Where do We Go?

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Wireless Sensor Networks Where do We Go?
Uday B. Desai B. N. Jain S. N. Merchant
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WSN
Information Processing Center

• WSN A link between the sensory world and the
  digital world
• Earliest In 1994 DARPA funded research on Low
  Power Wireless Integrated Microsensor
• In 2003, Technology Review from MIT, listed WSN
  on the top, among 10 emerging technologies that
  would impact our future
• WSN can be viewed as a disruptive technology
• It is 2007, and a lot work has been done in this
  area but still a long way to go
• And the strategy workshop is still very relevant

Internet Cloud
Aggregator
Base Station
Sensor Nodes
A Typical Architecture
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Smart dust to explore planets Tiny smart
devices that can be borne on the wind like dust
particles could be carried in space probes to
explore other planets, UK engineers say. The
devices would consist of a computer chip covered
by a plastic sheath that can change shape when a
voltage is applied, enabling it to be steered.
Details were presented at the National Astronomy
Meeting in Preston. John Barker, from the
University of Glasgow, said the particles could
use wireless networking to form swarms.
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Components in WSN

• As we all know, there are three main components
  in a WSN
• the sensor
• the processor
• the radio for wireless communication
• Processor and Radio technology are reasonably
  mature
• Nevertheless, cost is still a major consideration
  for large scale deployment
• Sensor Technology
• Technology for traditional sensors
• vibration, strain, light, humidity etc. quite
  mature
• But a long way to go for sensing
• Chemicals like nitrates, potassium etc. in soils,
  biochemical substances, bacteria, etc.
• Sensing technology needs much bigger push

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Till now

• A lot of work on protocols
• Multihop, time-synchronized, energy efficient,
  fault tolerant, localization,
• Of course, lot more needs to be done
• Collaborative information processing
• Many open issue still pending
• Most of the effort has been to take well known
  algorithms amd make then distributed
• Dedicated Operating System
• Tiny OS
• Dedicated database systems
• Tiny DB
• Programming language
• nesC
• Sun Microsystems Developing JAVA for resource
  hungry platforms, may be applicable to sensor
  nodes
• Standardization IEEE 802.15.4 --- Zigbee
• Large number of test deployments

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Some Major Research Initiatives in USA

• Major MNCs like Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Microsoft,
  Sun Microsystems are investing in RD in WSN
• Major research centers, like
• Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS) at
  University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)
• The Center for Information Technology Research in
  the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at the
  University of California at Berkeley (UCB)
• are pioneering new application areas for WSNs
  in large multidisciplinary teams
• Almost all major Universities and Research Labs.
  abroad have R and D in WSN

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Applications and Test Deployment

• Environmental monitoring
• CENS-UCLA
• 50 node seismic monitoring set up
• Terrestrial monitoring based on observing the
  biological and chemical cycles of nature.
• Aquatic monitoring Monitoring of streams and
  river

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Deployment

• Habitat Monitoring
• David Culler and his team at UC Berkeley have
  deployed since 2002 a network of more than 20
  motes on the Great Duck Island2 to monitor the
  islands habitat and the breeding habits of Leach
  Storm Petrels
• UC Berkeley project on monitoring redwood trees

• ExScal Extreme Scale Wireless Sensor Networking
  (Anish Arora at Ohio State Univ)
• demonstration covered an area 1.3km by 300m with
  about 1000 sensor nodes and around 200 backbone
  nodes
• One possible application detection
  classification of multiple intruder types over an
  extended perimeter.

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Deployment
SPANN Lab. deployment at Sula Wines

• Precision Agriculture
• Camalie Net    
• Wireless Sensor Network at Camalie Vineyards -
  Mt. Veeder, Napa Valley, California
• Accenture in collaboration with Intel has a WSN
  at Pickberry Vineyard in Northern California
• SPANN Lab., IIT-B at Sula Wines
• WSN for small agriculture farms CEDT, IISc

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• Disaster Response
• CalIT2 Wireless Internet Information System for
  Medical Response in Disasters (WIISARD) project
  is investigating the best way to triage
  casualties and manage care in chaotic situations
  following disasters, such as a biological attack,
  a bridge collapse or an earthquake
• SPANN-Lab. IITB Early Warning Systems for
  Landslide Prediction

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Many other Applications

• Automotive
• Health care
• Industrial monitoring
• Defense related
• The integration of WSNs in mobile phones
• include inexpensive sensors in the mobile phones,
  for dense data collection (for e.g. data on
  pollution or radiation) application projected
  by Deloitte and Touche

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Some Application work in India

• DRDO project on theoretical aspect, mote
  development and deployment (IISc.)
• WSN for critical emergency applications (Amirta
  Univ., IIT-Bombay, IIT-Delhi, IIT-Kgp)
• WSN for tracking and monitoring in underground
  mines (Central Mining Research Institute)
• Underwater wireless sensor networks (NPOL)
• WSN for Agriculture (IISc, IIT-Bombay)
• Pollution monitoring (IIT-Delhi, IIM-Kolkata,
  IIT-Kgp)
• WSN for Biomed (IIT-Bombay)
• Many IITs have WSN test beds

• Many other theoretical and application work in
  India
• The above list is by no means complete, it is
  only illustrative

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Academic Research to Industry

• WSN is transiting from active academic research
  to industry.
• Start-up companies such as
• Crossbow Technologies
• Dust Networks
• Ember
• Millennial Net
• Tendril Networks
• Scalable Network Technologies
• Airbee Wireless (India will be giving a demo)
• Virtualwire (Delhi, India)

• WSN can be a great enabler for
• component manufacturers
• system integrators
• software services providers
• OEMS
• application developers
• and other end users.

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2005
Market Projection for WSN
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Funding in USA (Illustrative)

• WSN technology has been nurtured in its early
  stages at UC-Berkeley (mote development) and UCLA
  (deployment)
• It is estimated that in the US over 100 million
  in government funding has been invested in
  university WSN research projects since 1998
• CENS started in 2002 at UCLA has 40 million over
  5 years

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Challenges Need Deliberations

• Development of very inexpensive motes
• Scalability very large scale deployment
• 1000s of nodes
• Need investments for such large scale deployments
• Development of sensors
• Bringing other disciplines into the picture
• No WSN deployment is a single discipline activity

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Issues

• What is your perception for the future of WSN
• Which areas in WSN are most promising
• Potential drivers and applications for WSN
• Investments in developing WSN technology
• How resources should be distributed among
  theoretical, practical and deployment research.
• What are the technical and commercial drivers
• How will the technology be marketed
• What are the potential markets
• What are the potential barriers to growth
• What kind of partnerships to evolve between
  industry, academia, and government for growth in
  WSN technology for India

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Finally

• WSN is an enabler technology
• Many believe that it can revolutionize ICT, the
  way microprocessor revolutionized chip technology
  nearly 30 years ago
• Plan to bring out an edited book
• Will ask participants and others in India to
  submit papers perspective, technical,
  deployment, etc.
• Will also ask overseas colleagues to contribute

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Many Thanks