The International Congress for Wireless Sensors & Networks 2006 dedicated to wireless sensor networks will welcome 20 industrial leaders coming from the key companies driving the industry who will discuss the main questions of the market such as:

- The worldwide wireless sensors market: future trends, growth potentials per applications and cost effectiveness of the industry
- One the main issue of the industry: the communication solutions & standards
- State of the art of the main technical challenges of the wireless sensor networks
- Wireless sensor networks developments in 4 workshops: Home & Building automation, Industrial automation, Medical and Automotive applications.

For full programme details, visit: http://www.icwsn.com/program/.

Computer scientist engineers here are using wireless sensor networks that employ software agents that so far have been able to navigate a robot safely through a simulated fire and spot a simulated fire by seeking out heat. Once the agent locates the fire, it clones itself - try that, James Bond — creating a ring of software around the fire. A “fireman” can then communicate with this multifaceted agent through a personal digital assistant (PDA) and learn where the fire is and how intense it is. Should the fire expand, the agents clone again and maintain the ring - an entirely different “ring of fire.”

The complete story here.

Call for Papers: The First International Workshop on Research Challenges in Next Generation Networks for First Responders and Critical Infrastructures. New Orleans, Louisiana, April 11-13.

As advances in pervasive computing, wireless communication and sensor networks continue, more opportunities are open to first responders and critical infra-structures to benefit from these technologies. Providing first responders with the best possible technology, infrastructure and services help save the lives of the general public and the first responders as well.

One of the main challenges to the operations of first responders and critical infrastructures is to deploy a communication network that is dependable, secure, and rapidly deployable. In order to operate effectively, the deployed network supports services such as location determination, audio and video communication, and in site and remote sensing. Another key feature for first responders and critical infrastructures networks is to support interactions among multiple heterogeneous networks.

more details here

Historically, knee implants have been designed using predictions based on theoretical data. Now, a new smart knee replacement can wirelessly transmit multi-axis torque and force information directly from patients to a computer. These advances greatly enhance the capabilities of the first smart knee implant in 2004 that reported only knee compressive forces. The second generation implant provides a wealth of new information: twisting, bending, compressive, and shearing loads across the human knee - all reported dynamically and wirelessly. The data generated from this device will provide key inputs for new designs, techniques for implantation, and actual use of knee replacements. In-depth analysis can now be undertaken of forces and torques transmitted across the knee joint during normal human activities such as stair climbing, rising from a chair and walking. The results of this analysis can be used to improve design, refine surgical instrumentation, guide post-operative physical therapy and potentially detect the individual activities that would overload the implant.

The complete story here.

Two Ph.D. positions in Wireless biomedical sensor networks at Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, NTNU, Norway. Two Ph.D. scholarships are offered within the area of Wireless biomedical sensor networks at the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications in the Faculty of Information Technology, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

The scholarships are financed by the Research Council of Norway (NFR) under the VERDIKT program. The project is on “Strategies for seamless deployment of mobile patient monitoring systems” (SAMPOS) and is a joint effort among Rikshospitalet University Hospital, SINTEF ICT, Norwegian Computing Center, and ABB Research. International collaborators are EPFL Switzerland, KTH Sweden and Johns Hopkins University, USA

The complete story here.

Swiss power sensing firm LEM has become the most recent company to adopt Zigbee for in-building wireless network products.

In this case, it is for a series of clamp-on power meters, dubbed Wi-LEM, which allow the energy use in areas of large buildings to be monitored - known as energy sub-metering.

Why Zigbee? “It is designed for volume and low-cost and it is robust in industrial and building environments,” said Tarek Boumegoura from LEM UK. “It can be configured in various topologies so you are sure to be able to establish a network, whatever the shape of the building.”

Zigbee is taking off in building automation where laying wires into existing buildings is expensive.

The compete story here.

The Climate Genie from Grape Networks consists of small battery powered nodes, often referred to as motes, to improve the yield and quality of crops. The Climate Genie wirelessly transmits temperature, humidity, and light information between each mote, with built-in radios, for monitoring anywhere in the World via the Internet. These motes/routers form a wireless mesh network with up to thousands of individual motes that are 10-300 meters apart. Each mote can sense a few simple things, such as temperature, moisture, light, or other physical qualities but as an aggregate gathers enormous sums of data about the quality and vitality of the grapes in the vineyard.

The complete story here.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), that consist of thousands of
low-cost sensor nodes, have been used in many promising
applications, such as military surveillance, infrastructure
protection, scientific exploration and smart environments.
Researchers in this area have accumulated a large portfolio of
network services and middleware, effectively addressing a wide range
of individual research problems. However, because of the limited
understanding on how to integrate these components effectively, we
are facing an urgent and challenging question on how to build sensor
network systems efficiently. To facilitate collaboration on and
convergence of future sensor network software and protocol
architecture, the International Workshop on Wireless Sensor Network
Architecture is seeking novel ideas which specify the essential
principles that guide sensor network software design.

The complete story, including the call for papers, is available here.