WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS

BY

E.VENKAT RAGHAVENDRA B.ARAVINDU

eragha417@yahoo.co.in aravind_414@yahoo.co.in
¾ E.C.E ¾ E.C.E

VIGNAN’S INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

VISAKHAPATNAM
ABSTRACT

Advances in hardware and wireless network technologies have created low-cost, low-
power, multifunctional miniature sensor devices. These devices make up hundreds or
thousands of ad hoc tiny sensor nodes spread across a geographical area. These sensor
nodes collaborate among themselves to establish a sensing network. A sensor network
can provide access to information anytime, anywhere by collecting, processing, analyzing
and disseminating data.

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a wireless network consisting of spatially

distributed autonomous devices using sensors to cooperatively monitor physical or
environmental conditions, such as temperature, sound, vibration, pressure, motion or
pollutants, at different locations. The development of wireless sensor networks was
originally motivated by military applications such as battlefield surveillance .In addition
to one or more sensors, each node in a sensor network is typically equipped with a radio
transceiver or other wireless communications device, a small microcontroller, and an
energy source, usually a battery. The size of a single sensor node can vary from shoebox-
sized nodes down to devices the size of grain of dust.

They are used in commercial and industrial applications to monitor data that would be
difficult or expensive to monitor using wired sensors. They could be deployed in
wilderness areas, where they would remain for many years without the need to
recharge/replace their power supplies. They could form a perimeter about a property and
monitor the progression of intruders. Some of the specific applications are habitat
monitoring, object tracking, nuclear reactor controlling, fire detection, traffic monitoring.

INTRODUCTION
A given computing capacity becomes exponentially smaller and cheaper with each
passing year .Researchers can use the semiconductor manufacturing techniques that
underlie this miniaturization to build radios and exceptionally small mechanical
structures that sense fields and forces in the physical world. These inexpensive, low-
power communication devices can be deployed throughout a physical space, providing
dense sensing close to physical phenomena, processing and communicating this
information , and coordinating actions with other nodes. Combining these capabilities
with the system software technology that forms the Internet makes it possible to
instrument the world within creasing fidelity. To realize this opportunity, information
technology must address a new collection of challenges. The individual devices in a
wireless sensor network (WSN) are inherently resource constrained: They have limited
processing speed, storage capacity, and communication bandwidth. These devices have
substantial processing capability in the aggregate, but not individually, so we must
combine their many vantage points on the physical phenomena with in the network
itself. In most settings, the network must operate for long periods of time and the nodes
are wireless, so the available energy resources—whether batteries, energy harvesting, or
both—limit their overall operation . To minimize energy consumption, most of the
device’s components, including the radio will likely be turned off most of the time.
Because they are so closely coupled to a changing physical world, the nodes forming the
network will experience wide variations in connectivity and will be subject to potentially
harsh environmental conditions. Their dense deployment generally means that there will
be a high degree of interaction between nodes, both positive and negative. Each of these
factors further complicates the networking protocols.

Figure 1 shows a modern WSN used for environmental monitoring in collaboration with
biologist Todd Dawson. An entire wireless weather station fits in a tube about the size of
a film canister. On top, two incident-light sensors measure total solar radiation,
specifically light and photo synthetically active radiation, the bands at which chlorophyll
are sensitive. An identical pair of sensors on the bottom, underneath a shade, measure
radiant light. In addition, on the bottom there are environmental sensors
to monitor relative humidity, barometric pressure, and temperature. The shade keeps rain
off these sensors and prevents warming.
The weather-protected center of the tube contains a small computer, data storage, battery,
and low-power radio to collect data, process it, and route information among the nodes
and to the outside world. This provides a cost-effective means of obtaining simultaneous
measurements at many points in the tree, spanning elevation and radial direction over a
prolonged period.

Microprocessors, power and storage

A sensor network node’s hardware consists of a microprocessor, data storage, sensors,
analog to digital converters (ADCs), a data transceiver, controllers that tie the pieces
together, and an energy source. Recently, a new operating point has emerged that suits all
these components. As semiconductor circuits become smaller, they consume less power
for a given clock frequency and fit in a smaller area. In simple microcontrollers,
miniaturization increases efficiency rather than adding functionality, allowing them to
operate near one milli watt while running at about 10 MHz. Most of the circuits can be
powered off, so the standby power can be about one microwatt. If such a device is active
1 percent of the time, its average power consumption is just a few microwatts. However,
low-power microprocessors have limited storage, typically less than 10 Kbytes of RAM
for data and less than 100 Kbytes of ROM for program storage—or about 10,000 times
less storage capacity than a PC has. This limited amount of memory consumes most of
the chip area and much of the power budget. Designers typically incorporate larger
amounts of flash storage, perhaps a megabyte, on a separate chip.

Micro sensors
Sensor nodes can be imagined as small computers, extremely basic in terms of their
interfaces and their components. They usually consist of a processing unit with limited
computational power and limited memory, sensors (including specific conditioning
circuitry), a communication device (usually radio transceivers or alternatively optical),
and a power source usually in the form of a battery. Sensors give these nodes their eyes
and ears. Many materials change their electrical characteristics when subjected to varying
environmental conditions. Sensors are manufactured so these changes are predictable
over a certain range. For example, a thermistor is a variable resistor that changes
smoothly with temperature. An ADC converts the voltage drop into a binary number that
a microcontroller can store or process. Photocells and fog detectors work similarly, but
they consist of finely interleaved combs separated by a material that uses incident
photons or moisture to change resistance. Many more sophisticated structures have been
developed to detect other phenomena. These structures consume a few milli watts and
only need to be turned on a fraction of the time. Extremely efficient ADCs have been
developed so that the sensor subsystem has an energy profile similar to the processor.
Micro electromechanical systems (MEMS) can sense a wide variety of physical
phenomena cheaply and efficiently. Researchers can use the processes for etching
transistors on silicon to carve out tiny mechanical structures, such as a microscopic
springboard within an open cavity. Gravitational forces or acceleration can deflect this
cantilevered mass, causing powerful internal forces that cause changes in material
properties or delicate alignments, which can be amplified and digitized.
Manufacturers used the first major commercial MEMS sensor, the accelerometer, to
trigger automotive airbag release. Whereas high-precision piezoelectric accelerometers
cost hundreds of dollars, MEMS provided sufficient precision for a few dollars. Once the
devices entered mass production, they could ride the CMOS technology growth of
modern chips to become increasingly accurate while remaining inexpensive. A wide
variety of MEMS devices can sense various forces, chemical concentrations, and
environmental factors.

:
Most traffic in sensor networks can be classified into one of three categories
1) Many-to-one: Multiple sensor nodes send sensor readings to a base station or
aggregation point in the network.
2) One-to-many: A single node (typically a base station) multicasts or floods a query or
control information to several sensor nodes.
3) Local communication: Neighboring nodes send localized messages to discover and
coordinate with each other. A node may broadcast messages intended to be received
by all neighboring nodes .
Nodes in sensor networks often exhibit trust relationships beyond those that are typically
found in ad-hoc networks. Neighboring nodes in sensor networks often witness the same
or correlated environmental events. If each node sends a packet to the base station in
response, precious energy and bandwidth are wasted. To prune these redundant messages
to reduce traffic and save energy, sensor networks require in-network processing,
aggregation, and duplicate elimination. This often necessitates trust relationships
between nodes that are not typically assumed in ad-hoc networks.

Commercially Available Wireless Sensor Systems

Many commercially available wireless communications nodes are available including
Lynx Technologies, and various Bluetooth kits, including the Casira devices from
Cambridge Silicon Radio, CSR.
1)Crossbow Berkeley Motes may be the most versatile wireless sensor network devices
on the market for prototyping purposes. Crossbow makes three Mote processor radio
module families– MICA [MPR300] (first generation), MICA2 [MPR400] and MICA2-
DOT [MPR500] (second generation). Nodes come with five sensors installed-
Temperature, Light, Acoustic (Microphone), Acceleration/Seismic, and Magnetic. These
are especially suitable for surveillance networks for personnel and vehicles. Different
sensors can be installed if desired. Low power and small physical size enable placement
virtually anywhere. Since all sensor nodes in a network can act as base stations, the
network can self configure and has multi-hop routing capabilities. The operating
frequency is ISM band, either 916MHz or 433 MHz, with a data rate of 40 Kbps. and a
range of 30 ft to 100 ft. Each node has a low power microcontroller processor with speed
of 4MHz, a flash memory with 128 Kbytes, and SRAM and EEPROM of 4K bytes each.
The operating system is Tiny-OS, a tiny micro-threading distributed operating system .
2)Micro strain’ s X-Link Measurement System may be the easiest system to get up and
running and to program. The frequency used is 916 MHz, which lies in the US license-
free ISM band. The sensor nodes are multi-channel, with a maximum of 8 sensors
supported by a single wireless node. There are three types of sensor nodes – S-link (strain
gauge), G-link (accelerometer), and V-link .
The sensor nodes have a pre-programmed EPROM, so a great deal of programming by
the user is not needed. Onboard data storage is 2MB. Sensor nodes use a 3.6-volt lithium
ion internal battery. A single receiver (Base Station) addresses multiple nodes. Each node
has a unique 16-bit address, so a maximum of 216 nodes can be addressed. The RF link
between Base Station and nodes is bi-directional and the sensor nodes have a
programmable data logging sample rate. The RF link has a 30 meter range with a 19200
baud rate.
Real-world events often occur in response to some environmental change. For example, a
person entering a room is often correlated with changes in light or motion, or a flower’s
opening with the presence or absence of sunlight. Multi-modal sensor networks can use
these correlations by triggering a secondary sensor based on the status of another, in
effect nesting one query inside another.

Figure shows two approaches for a user to cause one sensor to trigger another in a
network. In both cases we assume sensors know their locations and not all nodes can
communicate directly. Part (a) shows a direct way to implement this: the user queries the
initial sensors (small squares), when a sensor is triggered, the user queries the triggered
sensor (the small gray circle). The alternative shown in part (b) is a nested, two-level
approach where the user queries the triggered sensor which then sub-tasks the initial
sensors.
The advantage of a nested query is that data from the initial sensors can be interpreted
directly by the triggered sensor, rather than passing through the user.A nested query
localizes data traffic near the triggering event rather than sending it to the distant user,
thus reducing network traffic and latency. Since energy-conserving networks are
typically low-bandwidth and may be higher-latency, reduction in latency can be
substantial, and reductions in aggregate bandwidth to the user can mean the difference
between an overloaded and operational network.
Applications:

The applications for WSN s are many and varied. They are used in commercial and
industrial applications to monitor data that would be difficult or expensive to monitor
using wired sensors. They could be deployed in wilderness areas, where they would
remain for many years (monitoring some environmental variable) without the need to
recharge/replace their power supplies. They could form a perimeter about a property and
monitor the progression of intruders (passing information from one node to the next).
There are many uses for WSN s. Typical applications of WSN s include monitoring,
tracking, and controlling. Some of the specific applications are habitat monitoring, object
tracking, nuclear reactor controlling, fire detection, traffic monitoring, etc

In a typical application, a WSN is scattered in a region where it is meant to collect data

through its sensor nodes.

WSN s appear to represent a new class. They follow the trends of size,
number, and cost, but have a markedly different function. Rather than
being devoted to personal productivity tasks, WSN s make it possible
to perceive what takes place in the physical world in ways not
previously possible. In addition to offering the potential to advance
many scientific pursuits, they also provide a vehicle for enhancing
larger forms of productivity, such as manufacturing, agriculture,
construction, and transportation
The study of wireless sensor networks is challenging in that it requires
an enormous breadth of knowledge from an enormous variety of
disciplines.
The plethora of available technologies makes even the selection of
components difficult, let alone the design of a consistent, reliable,
robust overall system
Conclusion:

So with the great advance of wireless communications and microelectronics, the

technology of low-power sensor nodes with small size and low cost develop rapidly.
Consequently appears sensor network, which is a kind of wireless network, composed
with a great number of tiny sensor nodes, each consist of sensing, data processing,
communication and power components. And each sensor node is only need to deal with
simple computation and data storage. With the cooperation of sensor nodes, global
information is obtained and all kinds of goals can be achieved expediently. Sensor
network has turned out to be fairly useful in many fields,such as military, medical
treatment, environment monitor, traffic management and so on. And sensor network is
considered to be one of the most important technology in the 21st century.

References:

The design space of Wireless Sensor Networks, Kay Romer, Friedemann Mattern, ETH
Zurich
Wireless Sensor networks: a data centric overview, Letizia Tanca, Politecnico di Milano
Wireless Sensor Networks, Architectures and Protocols, Edgar H. Callaway, Jr.,
Auerbach Publications
www.wikipedia.com
www.google.com
http://webs.cs.berkeley.edu/