Wireless technology is having a profound impact on the embedded systems market. Low cost, low power, easy to implement, large scale wireless sensor networks are enabling innovative applications, as well as significant improvements in existing systems.
Generating the most interest and potential are wireless sensor networks that can assemble and reconfigure themselves. Consider a wireless sensor network that can run without a human administrator that will reconfigure itself automatically if nodes on the network fail. It might comprise tens of thousands of nodes spread over a huge area, yet will operate for years with minimal maintenance. Or consider an ad hoc network that builds or reconfigures itself, as required, from any suitable devices in range or which move into range.

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Sensinode Ltd., a pioneering/commercial supplier of solutions for IPv6 over wireless mesh networks, today announced it has joined the Texas Instruments (TI) Low-Power RF Developer Network. The technology innovation and licensing company, focused on enabling the Real-Time Enterprise, will present its solution on April 17, 2008 at the Texas Instruments booth (#1708) at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, Calif.

Leveraging TI’s high-performance, IEEE 801.15.4-compatible RF system-on-chip, CC2430/31, Sensinode supports the growth of the emerging market for low-cost, small form factor NanoRouter USB and NanoSensor devices by providing customers with advanced design solutions for the WSN (Wireless Sensor Network) environment.

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The WSN Lab sponsored by Pirelli and Telecom Italia, located in Downtown Berkeley near the University campus, develops wireless sensor networks technologies for applications in automotive, building management, and assisted living.

There are five Internships available, extending between 3 and 6 months.

The Intern will have the opportunity to contribute to the SPINE open source project that is developed by a community of researchers in the academia and the industry. (Options 2, 3 and 4)
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Ultra-low-power ZigBee-based wireless mesh networks, powered by a variety of energy-harvesting technologies, make it possible to create the first truly wireless and battery-less sense and control networks for regulating energy consumption in domestic and industrial uses.

Homes, offices and factories waste energy on lighting, heating and air conditioning. With the help of light- and temperature-sensor network technologies, energy conservation processes such as turning off lights and adjusting temperature now can be automated, reducing costs.

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Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) introduced the first product from the company’s new Z-Accel family of 2.4 GHz ZigBee-certified network processors. The CC2480 provides engineers complete ZigBee functionality without them having to learn the complexities of a full ZigBee stack, making it easy to integrate ZigBee into a wide variety of applications, such as home and building automation and industrial monitoring and control, with minimal development effort. The device also allows customers the flexibility to work with any host microcontroller (MCU).
“The CC2480 ZigBee processor drastically simplifies the design of a new low-power wireless product, or the addition of wireless into an existing product, by allowing customers to separate the application code from the networking component of their systems,” said Art George, Senior Vice President of TI’s High-Performance Analog business unit. “TI continues to deliver innovative products, software, and support so that customers can design advanced low-power wireless systems with shorter development times and lower production costs.”

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The Third IEEE International Workshop on Practical Issues in Building Sensor Network Applications is to be held in Montreal, Canada by 14-17 October, 2008

Real-world sensor network deployments and prototypic implementations are still not commonplace. However, experiences gained in such deployments are crucial for the sensor network research community. These results are needed to refine assumptions made when designing hardware, software, protocols and mechanisms for sensor networks.

This workshop aims at bringing together researchers from academia and industry to showcase their work and obtain feedback. We expect the workshop to act as a forum for the sensor network research community to discuss open issues, novel solutions and the future development of wireless sensor networks in general. For a list of topics of interest see the CFP.

Important Dates
Paper Registration Deadline: 25 April 2008
Paper Submission Deadline: 2 May 2008
Notification of Acceptance: 30 June 2008
Camera Ready Copy Due: 28 July 2008

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After receiving CE Mark approval last week, Biotronik, a developer of wireless remote monitoring technology for patients with cardiac devices, announced today the world’s first implantations of the new Lumax 540 implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) and cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator (CRT-D) devices in 11 hospitals in seven countries.

The new Lumax 540 platform is part of Biotronik´s most technologically advanced tachycardia product portfolio, providing extended therapy options- for individualized patient device programming as well as Biotronik Home Monitoring technology for wireless remote monitoring of patient’s cardiovascular status. A comprehensive set of diagnostic capabilities are further technical advancements included on the Lumax 540 devices to help physicians identify clinically relevant atrial fibrillation and early detection of worsening heart failure status.

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The Fifth ACM International Workshop on Performance Evaluation of Wireless Ad Hoc, Sensor, and Ubiquitous Networks will take place on October 27-31, 2008, in Vancouver, Canada.

Wireless ad hoc, sensor, along with ubiquitous networks have recently witnessed their fastest growth period ever in history, and this trend is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. However, as such networks become increasingly complex, performance modelling and evaluation will play a crucial part in their design process to ensure their successful deployment and exploitation in practice.

This workshop aims to share and exchange experiences, discuss challenges, and report state-of-the-art and in-progress research on all aspects of wireless ad hoc, sensor, and ubiquitous networks with a specific emphasis on their performance evaluation and analysis.
Check the CFP for list of topics of interest.
Important Dates
Paper Registration: May 20th, 2008
Full paper: June 1st, 2008
Acceptance notifcation: July 1st, 2008
Camera ready: TBA

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Researchers from MIT and two Singaporean universities met last month for an inaugural workshop to launch a bold new international research program called CENSAM. The program will develop pervasive environmental sensor networks to collect data on parameters such as air and water quality from many sources, and use this data to provide accurate, real-time monitoring, modeling and control of the environment.

One of the first goals of the research group is to provide proof of the feasibility of the concept in a carefully managed urban area like Singapore. The greater hope is that these concepts might one day be widely applied on different scales to provide up-to-the-minute data about the environment in areas as small as a building or as large as the Earth’s biosphere.

CENSAM, the Center for Environmental Sensing and Modeling, is a research component of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Centre (or SMART Centre), a joint project of MIT and the National Research Foundation of Singapore.

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The workshop on “Wireless Sensor and Actuator Network Research on Opposite Sides of the Globe” gives a unique insight into research topics of two large research consortia, the ISSNIP consortium and the SENSEI consortium on the topic of Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks. The workshop is organised as part of the ICT Mobile Summit in Stockholm (www.ict-mobilesummit.eu/2008) on 9th June 2008.

The ARC Research Network on Intelligent Sensors, Sensor Networks and Information Processing (ISSNIP) is the primary interface for sensor network research in Australia and consists of a network of more than 50 world leading local and international researchers from academia and industry, with a broader network of more than 100 affiliated researchers and students, as well as extensive links throughout Australia, the USA, Europe and Asia. The Research Network is part of an Australian Research Council initiative, created to facilitate increased inter-disciplinary collaboration across academia and industry in key research and development areas.

The SENSEI consortium (www.sensei-project.eu) is composed out of 9 companies, 2 SMEs, 2 research centres and 6 Universities, all based in Europe. The consortium was established to jointly work on wireless sensor and actuator network (WS&AN) technology and address the challenges of integrating WS&ANs into the Future Internet. The SENSEI consortium runs the SENSEI project as part of the 7th European Framework Programme on the topic of “The Network of the Future”.

For more information and the programme, go to: www.sensei-project.eu