Calibrating Wireless Sensor Network Simulation Models with Real-World Experiments

This paper studies the energy-efficiency and service characteristics of a recently developed energy-efficient MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks in simulation and on a real sensor hardware testbed. This opportunity is seized to illustrate how simulation models can be verified by cross-comparing simulation results with real-world experiment results. The paper demonstrates that by careful calibration of simulation model parameters, the inevitable gap between simulation models and real-world conditions can be reduced. It concludes with guidelines for a methodology for model calibration and validation of sensor network simulation models.

User and Machine Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure for Distributed Wireless Sensor Network Testbeds

The intention of an authentication and authorization infrastructure (AAI) is to simplify and unify access to different web resources. With a single login, a user can access web applications at multiple organizations. The Shibboleth authentication and authorization infrastructure is a standards-based, open source software package for web single sign-on (SSO) across or within organizational boundaries. It allows service providers to make fine-grained authorization decisions for individual access of protected online resources. The Shibboleth system is a widely used AAI, but only supports protection of browser-based web resources. We have implemented a Shibboleth AAI extension to protect web services using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Besides user authentication for browser-based web resources, this extension also provides user and machine authentication for web service-based resources. Although implemented for a Shibboleth AAI, the architecture can be easily adapted to other AAIs.

Mobile competence network for community health workers in rural Myanmar: a supportive information system that facilitates the improvement of health services.

The goal of this project is the development of international cooperation for fostering solutions to provide better access to basic healthcare services.

EASE: EPC as a service to ease mobile core network deployment over cloud

The objective of this article is to demonstrate the feasibility of on-demand creation of cloud-based elastic mobile core networks, along with their lifecycle management. For this purpose the article describes the key elements to realize the architectural vision of EPC as a Service, an implementation option of the Evolved Packet Core, as specified by 3GPP, which can be deployed in cloud environments. To meet several challenging requirements associated with the implementation of EPC over a cloud infrastructure and providing it “as a Service,” this article presents a number of different options, each with different characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages. A thorough analysis comparing the different implementation options is also presented.

Heterogeneous Collaborative Sensor Network for Electrical Management of an Automated House with PV Energy

In this paper we present a heterogeneous collaborative sensor network for electrical management in the residential sector. Improving demand-side management is very important in distributed energy generation applications. Sensing and control are the foundations of the “Smart Grid” which is the future of large-scale energy management. The system presented in this paper has been developed on a self-sufficient solar house called “MagicBox” equipped with grid connection, PV generation, lead-acid batteries, controllable appliances and smart metering. Therefore, there is a large number of energy variables to be monitored that allow us to precisely manage the energy performance of the house by means of collaborative sensors. The experimental results, performed on a real house, demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed collaborative system to reduce the consumption of electrical power and to increase energy efficiency.

Wireless Sensor Network based on OCDMA for closed environments

An infrared optical wireless system is presented, consisting on autonomous remote nodes communicating with a central node. The network is designed for telecommand/telemetry purposes, comprising a large number of nodes at a low data rate. Simultaneous access is granted by using CDMA techniques, and an appropriate selection of the code family can also keep power consumption to a minimum

SCA security verification on wireless sensor network node

Side Channel Attack (SCA) differs from traditional mathematic attacks. It gets around of the exhaustive mathematic calculation and precisely pin to certain points in the cryptographic algorithm to reveal confidential information from the running crypto-devices. Since the introduction of SCA by Paul Kocher et al [1], it has been considered to be one of the most critical threats to the resource restricted but security demanding applications, such as wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we focus our work on the SCA-concerned security verification on WSN (wireless sensor network). A detailed setup of the platform and an analysis of the results of DPA (power attack) and EMA (electromagnetic attack) is presented. The setup follows the way of low-cost setup to make effective SCAs. Meanwhile, surveying the weaknesses of WSNs in resisting SCA attacks, especially for the EM attack. Finally, SCA-Prevention suggestions based on Differential Security Strategy for the FPGA hardware implementation in WSN will be given, helping to get an improved compromise between security and cost.

The SSN ontology of the W3C semantic sensor network incubator group

The W3C Semantic Sensor Network Incubator group (the SSN-XG) produced an OWL 2 ontology to describe sensors and observations ? the SSN ontology, available at http://purl.oclc.org/NET/ssnx/ssn. The SSN ontology can describe sensors in terms of capabilities, measurement processes, observations and deployments. This article describes the SSN ontology. It further gives an example and describes the use of the ontology in recent research projects.

Runtime variability for dynamic reconfiguration in wireless sensor network product lines

Runtime variability is a key technique for the success of Dynamic Software Product Lines (DSPLs), as certain application demand reconfiguration of system features and execution plans at runtime. In this emerging research work we address the problem of dynamic changes in feature models in sensor networks product families, where nodes of the network demand dynamic reconfiguration at post-deployment time.

Simulation Tool and Case Study for Planning Wireless Sensor Network

In this paper, a simulation tool for assisting the deployment of wireless sensor network is introduced and simulation results are verified under a specific indoor environment. The simulation tool supports two modes: deterministic mode and stochastic mode. The deterministic mode is environment dependent in which the information of environment should be provided beforehand. Ray tracing method and deterministic propagation model are employed in order to increase the accuracy of the estimated coverage, connectivity and routing; the stochastic mode is useful for large scale random deployment without previous knowledge on geographic information. Dynamic Source Routing protocol (DSR) and Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing protocol (AODV) are implemented in order to calculate the topology of WSN. Hence this tool gives direct view on the performance of WSN and assists users in finding the potential problems of wireless sensor network before real deployment. At the end, a case study is realized in Centro de Electronica Industrial (CEI), the simulation results on coverage, connectivity and routing are verified by the measurement.

Integration of wearable devices in a wireless sensor network for an e-health application

Applications based on Wireless Sensor Networks for Internet of Things scenarios are on the rise. The multiple possibilities they offer have spread towards previously hard to imagine fields, like e-health or human physiological monitoring. An application has been developed for its usage in scenarios where data collection is applied to smart spaces, aiming at its usage in fire fighting and sports. This application has been tested in a gymnasium with real, non-simulated nodes and devices. A Graphic User Interface has been implemented to suggest a series of exercises to improve a sportsman/woman s condition, depending on the context and their profile. This system can be adapted to a wide variety of e-health applications with minimum changes, and the user will interact using different devices, like smart phones, smart watches and/or tablets.

Wireless Sensor Network Solution for Sustainable Food Production

Environmental monitoring has become a key aspect in food production over the last few years. Due to their low cost, low power consumption and flexibility, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have turned up as a very convenient tool to be used in these environments where no intrusion is a must. In this work, a WSN application in a food factory is presented. The paper gives an overview of the system set up, covering from the initial study of the parameters and sensors, to the hardware-software design and development needed for the final tests in the factory facilities.

Cognitive wireless sensor network platform for cooperative communications

Nowadays, Wireless Ad Hoc Sensor Networks (WAHSNs), specially limited in energy and resources, are subject to development constraints and difficulties such as the increasing RF spectrum saturation at the unlicensed bands. Cognitive Wireless Sensor Networks (CWSNs), leaning on a cooperative communication model, develop new strategies to mitigate the inefficient use of the spectrum that WAHSNs face. However, few and poorly featured platforms allow their study due to their early research stage. This paper presents a versatile platform that brings together cognitive properties into WAHSNs. It combines hardware and software modules as an entire instrument to investigate CWSNs. The hardware fits WAHSN requirements in terms of size, cost, features, and energy. It allows communication over three different RF bands, becoming the only cognitive platform for WAHSNs with this capability. In addition, its modular and scalable design is widely adaptable to almost any WAHSN application. Significant features such as radio interface (RI) agility or energy consumption have been proven throughout different performance tests.

Environmental Wireless Sensor Network Deployment in Food Industry: from Theory to Practice

The difficulty behind Wireless Sensor Network deployments in industrial environments not only resides in the number of nodes or the communication protocols but also in the real location of the sensor nodes and the parameters to be monitored. Sensor soiling, high humidity and unreachable locations, among others, make real deployments a very difficult task to plan. Even though it is possible to find myriad approaches for floor planners and deployment tools in the state of the art, most of these problems are very difficult to model and foresee before actually deploying the network in the final scenario. This work shows two real deployments in food factories and how their problems are found and overcome.

A Survey on Underwater Acoustic Sensor Network Routing Protocols

Underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) have become more and more important in ocean exploration applications, such as ocean monitoring, pollution detection, ocean resource management, underwater device maintenance, etc. In underwater acoustic sensor networks, since the routing protocol guarantees reliable and effective data transmission from the source node to the destination node, routing protocol design is an attractive topic for researchers. There are many routing algorithms have been proposed in recent years. To present the current state of development of UASN routing protocols, we review herein the UASN routing protocol designs reported in recent years. In this paper, all the routing protocols have been classified into different groups according to their characteristics and routing algorithms, such as the non-cross-layer design routing protocol, the traditional cross-layer design routing protocol, and the intelligent algorithm based routing protocol. This is also the first paper that introduces intelligent algorithm-based UASN routing protocols. In addition, in this paper, we investigate the development trends of UASN routing protocols, which can provide researchers with clear and direct insights for further research.