| In April’05 a group of select P2P and Mobile Ad-hoc Networks researcher met at the famous Schloss Dagstuhl to discuss the overlap between the two communities (see P2P MANETs - New Research Issues). Continuing this debate there is a recent paper on how P2P models could be useful in sensornets and maybe the P2P and sensornets communities should try to explore cross community issues instead of working in isolation. |  |
Third International Workshop on Algorithmic Aspects of Wireless Sensor Networks
July 14, 2006, Wroclaw, Poland
To be held in conjunction with ICALP 2007.
http://algosensors2007.im.pwr.wroc.pl
Call for papers is available here.
In spite of several years of intense research, the area of security and cryptography in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) still has a number of open problems. On the other hand, the advent of Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) has enabled a wide range of new cryptographic solutions. In this work, we argue that IBE is ideal for WSNs and vice versa. We discuss the synergy between the systems, describe how WSNs can take advantage of IBE, and present results for computation of the Tate pairing over resource constrained nodes.
The paper by Leonardo B. Oliveira and Diego Aranha and Eduardo Morais and Felipe Daguano and Julio Lo’pez and Ricardo Dahab can be downloaded here.
An interesting paper on Sensor Networks for Environmental applications has been published on Earth-Science Reviews. The abstract states:
“Environmental Sensor Networks (ESNs) facilitate the study of fundamental processes and the development of hazard response
systems. They have evolved from passive logging systems that require manual downloading, into ‘intelligent’ sensor networks that
comprise a network of automatic sensor nodes and communications systems which actively communicate their data to a Sensor
Network Server (SNS) where these data can be integrated with other environmental datasets. The sensor nodes can be fixed or
mobile and range in scale appropriate to the environment being sensed. ESNs range in scale and function and we have reviewed
over 50 representative examples. Large Scale Single Function Networks tend to use large single purpose nodes to cover a wide
geographical area. Localised Multifunction Sensor Networks typically monitor a small area in more detail, often with wireless adhoc
systems. Biosensor Networks use emerging biotechnologies to monitor environmental processes as well as developing proxies for immediate use. In the future, sensor networks will integrate these three elements (Heterogeneous Sensor Networks). The communications system and data storage and integration (cyberinfrastructure) aspects of ESNs are discussed, along with current challenges which need to be addressed. We argue that Environmental Sensor Networks will become a standard research tool for future Earth System and Environmental Science. Not only do they provide a ‘virtual’ connection with the environment, they allow new field and conceptual approaches to the study of environmental processes to be developed. We suggest that although technological advances have facilitated these changes, it is vital that Earth Systems and Environmental Scientists utilise them.”
The paper is available for download here
Protothreads are extremely lightweight stackless threads designed for severely memory constrained systems, such as small embedded systems or wireless sensor network nodes. Event-driven programming is often considered “hard” because of the need to explicitly manage state-machines. Protothreads significantly reduce the complexity of programming memory constrained systems by making it possible to write event-driven programs in a thread-like style, with a memory overhead of only two bytes per protothread.
Read the Protothreads SenSys 2006 paper here.
Protothreads library is available for download here.
A paper on the use of WSN for fire detection won the Best Paper Award at MobiSys 2006. A system based on MOS was deployed during August/September 2005 in the Bitterroot National Forest in Idaho, as part of a collaboration with the University of Montana. A hybrid network consisting of three MOS wireless sensor networks supported by an 802.11 backbone was deployed in the presence of active wildfires over mountainous forested terrain to monitor weather conditions. The paper reports that MOS operated well in this extremely rugged test of its kernel, networking, duty cycling, and application support capabilities.
The paper is available here.
Communications in wireless sensor networks are data-centric, with the objective of delivering collected data in a timely fashion. Also, such networks are resource-constrained, in terms of sensor nodes’ processing power, bandwidth communication, storage space and energy. This gives rise to new challenges in information processing and data management in wireless sensor networks. In many applications, users may frequently query information in the network. The tradeoff between updates and queries needs to be addressed. In-network data processing techniques, from simple reporting to more complicated collective communications, such as data aggregation, broadcast, multicast and gossip should be developed. On the other hand, data collected by sensors can intrinsically be viewed as signals. By exploiting signal processing techniques, collective communications can be done in more energy-efficient ways. Moreover, distributed data management schemes are necessary to be devised when sensed data is collected from different sources at different rates.
The Call for Papers is available here.
There is a very cool Eclipse Plugin available (in beta testing) for TinyOS from here.
The plugin is basically aimed at making TinyOS and NesC programming easier. “Newcomers who have little experience in writing sensor network applications need help on fundamental aspects of TinyOS development. For one, getting used to the design philosophy of the operating system is not easy. Especially its completely modular application design and the unique way of combining modules by means of a so called “wiring” require some time to get used to.” … read ACM RealWSN’06 paper here
Medium Access Control (MAC) for Wireless Sensor Networks has been a very active research area for the past couple of years. The sensor networks literature presents an alphabet soup of MAC protocols. Koen Langendoen is serving the “MAC Alphabet Soup” for sensor networks. The webpage provides a comprehensive index into various MAC protocols specifically designed for use in Wireless Sensor Networks, where energy consumption, latency, throughput, and fairness have a different trade off than in typical WLAN (802.11) networks. You can help contribute MAC protocols not listed in the soup yet.
For an overview of MAC protocols in sensor networks you can read the book chapter on MAC in the “Embedded Systems Handbook” (2005), here.
For an overview of future research challenges for MAC design in sensor networks you can read the recent ACM SIGCOMM CCR article (April 2006), here.
After listening to Jan Beutel’s great presentation on Metrics for Sensor Network Platforms at ACM REALWSN’06, I discovered the Sensor Network Museum. It has reference data and links for different platforms. You can find detailed information on Sensor Networks Routing Protocols, MAC Layer Protocols, Simulators, Hardware, Processors, Radio Systems, Sensors and Energy.
