Arch Rock Corp. has introduced the first wireless sensor network (WSN) to address large-scale enterprise applications by forming large, resilient IP-based WSNs and letting users centrally manage collections of those WSNs as an integral part of the enterprise IP infrastructure.
Arch Rock’s new PhyNet IP-based platform implements a tiered WSN architecture that eliminates the need to co-locate individual sensor networks with the server-based functions that control them by placing a scalable internetworking tier—the first “WSN router”—between them. Sensor applications can now reside half a world away, across a corporate campus or in the next room, communicating with any number of WSNs across local- or wide-area IP networks. Because PhyNet extends standard Internet Protocol (IP) technology from the enterprise infrastructure to the sensor network mesh and out to individual sensor nodes, those nodes can communicate directly with any other IP devices on the enterprise network regardless of their connection medium (IEEE 802.15.4 radio, 802.11 Wi-Fi, Ethernet, etc.). The PhyNet platform also applies to the IP-based WSN the vast body of standard and well tested IP tools for interoperability, management and security, eliminating the need to deploy dedicated and unproven schemes.

More info here.

From Crossbow’s blog:

US water facilities and those around the world are faced with mounting operational and maintenance costs as a result of aging pipeline infrastructures. The ability to monitor and control the infrastructure is no longer a pipe dream but is on its way to becoming reality thanks to wireless sensor networks. PipeNet, is a system designed by researchers at Imperial College in London and CSAIL at MIT in conjunction with Intel Research, to collect hydraulic and acoustic/vibration data at high sampling rates as well as use algorithms for analyzing this data to detect and locate leaks. A study by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) estimates that water utilities will need $277 billion over the next 20 years (2003-2023) to install, upgrade, and replace infrastructure. Unfortunately, identifying the high priority areas is a non-trivial task because of the scale and age of the pipeline infrastructures. Failures of large diameter bulk-water transmission pipelines are of greatest concern as these are supply critical systems. When these failures do occur, there are dire consequences including loss of life, severe interruptions in service, degraded fire fighting ability, damage to adjacent infrastructure and buildings, and of course the multi-million dollar repair bills.

ZigBeef has developed a novel long-range radio frequency identification (RFID) system that allows handheld devices to track numerous mobile assets. The system consists of one or more asset tags and a tag reader and can be set up in minutes. The ZigBeef tags are about the size of a pack of chewing gum. The tag reader is presently offered as a USB-stick. PDA and Smartphone interfaces are also available. In minutes, users can set up a working RFID tagging system.

ZigBeef tag systems offer new levels of convenience for asset identification. For example, a rancher using a ZigBeef reader can receive an instantaneous headcount of cattle in a pasture. A rental lot manager can take inventory of tagged vehicles immediately. Oil well site managers can log entry and exit times of vehicles or equipment at their locations.

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EasySen, in collaboration with the University of Notre Dame’s MOSES Lab, proposes the use of radio frequency beacons to generate (switched) potential fields for navigation of large numbers of swarm agents. The idea is to use attractive beacons as waypoints and local attractors, while repelling beacons on each agent are used to control the density of agents and avoid collisions.

If a certain sequence of waypoints defines a navigation path, then the attractive beacons need to be distinguishable and need to be visited in a certain sequence. Repelling beacons are local and do not need to be distinguishable. Individual sensor swarm agents are equipped with a side-looking stereo receiver with opposite directions of highest sensitivity. A simple difference between the left and the right Receiver Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) allows to detect in which half space (relative to the center length axis of the vehicle) a beacon is located. One can then navigate towards a beacon by always moving towards the receiver side that has produced the stronger RSSI reading. For repelling beacons, one always moves towards the direction of the smaller RSSI signal.

The applications of this paradigm are many and range from environmental clean-up such as oil spill removal to surveillance and protection tasks.

Nice pictures of their current implementation, based on the mobile robots and Tmote Sky, can be seen here while a white paper can be found here. Also this video shows a ground vehicle swarm that performs a simple detection task.

ZigBee Open House is coming to Tokyo, Thursday, February 28, 2008. Starting at 10:00AM at The Laforet Hotel. Anyone may attend free of charge and participate in a range of technical sessions covering the ZigBee overview, ZigBee public application profiles, product certifications and a ZigBee panel discussion. The event also features a member product and service exhibit and concludes with an evening reception, allowing attendees to network with ZigBee Alliance member companies.
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The firefly device is a behavioral sensing system with support software for gathering data and developing customer applications.

The device has sensors, a radio (802.15.4), and a rechargeable battery. The sensors include: 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis magnetometer, and radio signal strength. The software supports wireless and wired upload of sensor data in real time. When out of range, the device collects sensor data in an internal memory then automatically uploads the data when back in range.
The accelerometer and magnetometer data can be used for various purposes such as calculating orientation, monitoring motion such as walking, etc. Radio signal strength can be used to estimate the distance to other firefly devices (firefly devices transmit their identities to each other).

More info here.

Crossbow announced the release of ēKo Pro Series, a turnkey live data, wireless crop monitoring system enabling precision agriculture. The ēKo Pro Series follows Crossbow’s already popular sensor and navigation solutions for heavy agricultural equipment. See the video below for additional details.

ēKo represents the next generation in crop monitoring and precision agriculture techniques, employing a mesh network of wireless sensors and providing vital live data about crop health, vigor and growth progress via a simple internet browser. Among others, the ēKo Pro Series monitoring solution features the following innovations:
• Solar-powered, field-deployed wireless sensor nodes, which require no electrical power so that sensors can be placed where needed.
• Simple-to-use, web-based data viewing that allows remote access to live sensor data, critical trend charts and alarm settings - all of which are highly customizable.
• Leading-edge, reliable wireless mesh network technology that is self-configuring and self-healing, thus providing effortless setup and easy scalability, where additional wireless nodes and sensors can be added easily by non-technical users.

More info is available on Crossbow’s blog.

Radiocrafts AS, a leading supplier of wireless RF modules for communication in the license-free frequency bands, and Sensinode Ltd., a pioneering/commercial supplier of solutions for IPv6 over wireless mesh networks, today launch a new platform for integrating the Internet with sensor networks.

The IEEE 802.15.4 compliant radio modules from Radiocrafts combined with the 6LoWPAN compliant NanoStack from Sensinode offers integrators super compressed IPv6 over low power radios in a very compact module solution. The use of end-to-end open source IP technology over a proven radio platform provides an excellent and scalable solution for IP-based monitoring and control systems like AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) and WSN (Wireless Sensor Networks).

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Sun announced that the Sun SPOT project has gone open source. It’s now available at http://spots.dev.java.net. Additionally they announced widespread availability of Sun SPOTs (36 countries and counting) as well as deep discounts for education (see the Sun educational sales rep for details).

The full press release is available here.

Joe Polastre, co-founder and CTO of Sentilla, gave a presentation on Pervasive Computing with Java at the latest Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days. Sentilla is about making the real world — and everything in it — smarter, with software for small computers that can be put anywhere or attached to anything. Called pervasive computing, this technology is applied in wide-ranging industries such as logistics, transportation, security, health care, agriculture and green technology. Founded in 2003, Sentilla Corporation provides a full life cycle software platform for developing, deploying, integrating and managing pervasive computing applications with the familiarity of Java technology. Sentilla’s mission is to enable the billions of very small computers deployed throughout the physical world to work together to solve really big business problems.

The presentation is available here.