Wireless Sensor Networks

Dalusung, Christian Gerald

Loto, Ramzel Renz

Quiroz, Abraham

Tabernilla, Michael Constantine

Vinas, Martin

January 2019
 I. Introduction

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. It is

a collection of sensing devices that can communicate wirelessly. (Chakrabarti, 2018)

WSNs are the type of networks in which sensor nodes sense the network information and

pass sensed information to the base station. (TechSparks)

Wireless sensors have limited resources in memory, computation power, bandwidth, and energy.

Their small physical size enables them to be embedded in the physical environment. WSNs are

characterized as self-organizing multi-hop ad-hoc networks.

 The development of wireless sensor networks was originally motivated by military

applications such as battlefield surveillance. However, wireless sensor networks are now used in

many civilian application areas, including environment and habitat monitoring, healthcare

applications, home automation, and traffic control. It has received worldwide attention in recent

years, particularly with the proliferation of Micro-Electromechanical Systems (MEMS), technology

that has facilitated the development of Smart Sensors. These sensors are small and have limited

processing and computational resources, and they are inexpensive compared to conventional

sensors. These sensor nodes can recognize measure and collect information from the

environment and based on a local decision-making process, they can transmit the captured data

to the user

II. Abstract

This documentation provides an in-depth guide on the wireless sensor networks’

development, main properties, and the fundamentals of the sensor’s main functions. It also

elaborates the sensor’s mechanism, its basic architecture, characteristics of each part of the

network and how each contributes to the mechanism. It will also give a brief rundown on some of

its applications in the real world and how it changed the field of wireless technology. It will also

deal with the technology’s advantages and disadvantages from its current state, what can be done

to improve its shortcomings, and what will the vision be with this techonology furnished to its full

potential in the near future.

 III. Review of Related Literature and Studies

Unmanned aerial vehicles applications in future smart cities

(Mohameda, Jaroodi, Jawhar, Idries, Mohammed)

This paper proposed a new application in AUV for smart cities to manage their resources

and provide better services to the community; research, development and production in industry.

The smart city vision is to enhance the quality of life of the residents and visitors, improve

utilization of the cities resources, increase sustainability and reduce negative impact on the

environment. AUV applications in smart cities will be deployed through Traffic monitoring and

management, Health emergency services, Security and crowd monitoring, UAV-based

infrastructure inspections, Tourism support, UAV-based surveying, Large-scale disaster

management, Merchandise order delivery, UAV-aided wireless communications, UAV taxi, UAV-

based fog computing and Data collection in WSN using UAV’s. The proposed future application

in UAV has a great chance to utilize the needs of every community.

Design and Deployment of Aqua Monitoring System Using Wireless Sensor Networks and
IAR-Kick
(Chandanapalli, Reddy E, and Lakshmi D)
 This paper proposed a system using Wireless sensor networks. Wireless sensor networks

are used to monitor aqua farms for relevant parameters, such as pH levels, humidity, dissolved

oxygen levels, water temperature, ammonia levels etc. This system consists of two modules

which are transmitter station and receiver station. The transmitter station consists of sensor nodes

such as pH, humidity, and temperature inside and outside of water, and also microcontrollers,

GSM, analog/digital converters. The receiver station consists of GSM module for receiving the

sensing data from transmitter through GSM network. The receiver station receives data through

the com port and stores in PC in order to achieve human-computer interface. The graphical user

interface was designed, so that farmers and investigators can observe, investigate and analyze

the related data. The user interface allows them to convey the analyzed data in the form of a

message to the farmers in their respective local languages to their Mobile Phones and alerts them

in unhygienic environmental conditions. With this even semi-literate farmers can interact with the

system and can understand the information in order to take suitable actions.

Development of a Low-cost Wireless Sensor Network for Monitoring of Earthquakes in

Developing Countries

(Balanay, Hernandez, Talampas, To)

National governments in developing countries heavily invest in infrastructures in cities and

economic zones that cradle economic growth and development in particular regions of the

country. Countries located in the earth's ring of fire have the added challenge of maintaining these

capital-intensive infrastructures in order not to stall economic growth after an earthquake.

However, cities and economic zones in developing countries lack the monitoring system that is

needed for earthquake warning, post-disaster applications and developmental research. This

paper presents the development of a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) for earthquake monitoring.

Its low cost makes it suitable for implementation in cities and economic zones in developing

countries. The use of MEMS accelerometers greatly reduces the cost compared to other systems
already in the market. The pilot system is composed of six slave nodes and a base station node.

The slave nodes are mote platforms equipped with a tri-axial accelerometer and a radio chip for

wireless data transmission. Vibrations measured by the slave nodes are transmitted wirelessly

until it reaches the base station node, which acts as the data sink, and is responsible for the serial

interface of the (base station) PC to the sensor network. The base station node is also responsible

for time synchronization of the system. Routing protocols, such as the multi-hop protocol, extend

the wireless communication range of a node for wider coverage of large-scale deployments. Other

protocols update the system model of the network for better reliability in case of failure of a single

node. Lastly, the base station (PC) handles the logging and the storage of the data for future

processing and analysis.

Smart Farm Using Wireless Sensor Network for Data Acquisition and Power Control

Distribution

(Culibrina, Dadios)

Smart Farming makes a tremendous contribution for food sustainability for 21st century.

Using wireless sensor network in farming from; independent power source distribution, monitoring

valves and switches operation, and remote area control will efficiently produce excellent quality

farm products in all season. In order to control farm power distribution and irrigation system, this

paper proposes a communication methodology of the wireless sensor network for collecting

environment data and sending control command to turn on/off irrigation system and manipulate

power distribution. Based on their gathered data, the proposed system developed is accurate

robust and reliable.

Congestion Control Based on Consensus in the Wireless Sensor Network

(Yang, Jia, Zhang, Li)

The congestion control algorithm based on the weighted directed graph is designed for
the network congestion over the wireless sensor network. The congestion problem is
modeled as a distributed dynamic system with time-varying delay, and it can be proven
that the sent rate for all nodes converges to the available bandwidth of the sink by the
proposed congestion control algorithm.

Via Lyapunov function, the validity of the proposed algorithm is shown under the varying
network topologies. Ns simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm restrains
the congestion over the wireless sensor network, maintains a high throughput and a low
delay time, and also improves the quality of service for the whole network.
Advantages

As wireless networks, their biggest advantage – as opposed to wired or fixed wireless

networks – is that they are truly wireless. Most traditional “wireless” access points needs to be

wired to the Internet to broadcast outgoing signals. For large wireless networks, Ethernet cables

need to be buried in ceilings and walls and throughout public areas. (Sarao, 2018)

Other advantages of wireless sensor networks in general include:

 It is a flexible network and can adapt to changes in available network resources such

as flows or topology and changes in design requirements.

 Wireless sensor networks can accommodate new devices in the network any time,

with ease.

 WSN saves a lot of wiring cost and sensors, i.e. passive infrared (PIR) detectors are

relatively cheaper than wires.

 It can be applied on a large scale and in various fields such as healthcare, defense,

environment monitoring etc., which is very beneficial to human welfare.

 It can be accessed through a centralized monitor.

Disadvantages

Despite its appealing advantages, wireless sensor network also has its disadvantages.

 Communication speed is comparatively low than wired networks.

 WSN network are not as secure as compared to wired networks. Hackers can get into

the network much easier.

 Sensor nodes can get interrupted by other wireless devices such as Bluetooth.
  It is more complex to configure.

 Nodes need to be charged at regular intervals. Battery life of the nodes is very low.

 WNS is still costly at large.

IV. Functionality

Several real applications have been deployed and with the advancement in technology,

new application areas keep emerging. Here we describe some examples of the recently deployed

WSN applications which have been tested in the real environment.

Figure 4.1. Examples of WSN applications deployed in the real environment

Figure 4.2. System architecture in the counter-sniper application PinPtr

 In the field of military and crime prevention, there is the PinPtr. It is a counter-sniper system
developed to detect and locate shooters as shown in Figure 4.2. The ad-hoc acoustic sensor
network detects the muzzle blast and the acoustic shockwave that originate from the sound of
gunfire. Sensors route their measurements to the base station to compute the shooter’s location.
The arrival times of the acoustic events at different at different sensor nodes are used to determine
the trajectory of the bullet and estimate the location of the shooter.
CenWits is a search-and-rescue system designed to determine an approximate small area
where search-and-rescue efforts can be concentrated. The system consists of mobile sensors
worn by subjects (people), access points that collect information from these sensors and GPS
receivers,and location points to provide location information to the sensors. The subject
determines its current location by using the GPS receivers and location points. The key concept
of this sensor-based tracking system is to use the witnesses to convey the movement and location
information of the subject to the outside world.
ZebraNet is a sensor-based tracking system developed to track animal migrations. It
consists of a mobile sensor network created by attaching special collars equipped with a low-
power GPS system to the necks of zebras to monitor their movement patterns and behavior as
shown in Figure 4.3.

Figure 4.3. The Zebra Net sensor collar, attached to a zebra

The system was deployed at the Sweetwaters game reserve in central Kenya to study the
effects and reliability of the collar and to collect movement data. GPS is used to take
positional readings which are sent multi-hop across zebras to the base station. The
movement data collected through the base station can be used for analysis to better
understand the zebra movements during the day and night.
 Figure 4.4. Shimmer device
SHIMMER devices are wearable sensors that can store patient data such as identification,
history, and treatments. They are equipped with wireless medical sensors, vibration sensors, and
other devices that may be used to monitor and treat patients in various medical scenarios. These
wearable sensor nodes can record and transmit patient data in real-time. In general, existing
health care and patient monitoring applications such as infant monitoring, alerting the deaf, blood
pressure monitoring and tracking, and fire-fighter vital sign monitoring.
There is also a water monitoring system called NAWMS. The Non-intrusive Autonomous
Water Monitoring System (NAWMS) is a novel easy-to-install and self-calibrating water monitoring
system developed for homes using distributed WSNs. It uses wireless vibration sensors attached
to the water pipes to provide real-time water usage information at different locations of the water
pipe system, thus enabling the efficiency of homes. The water utility companies only provide total
water usage in a house, which makes it difficult to determine the individual sources that contribute
to the total consumption. The NAWMS system localizes the wastage in water usage and alerts
residents about more efficient usage. Thus, using NAWMS, the water usage in each pipe of the
plumbing system of the house can be monitored at a low cost.

Table 4 Leading research projects in the domain of WNS

In the recent decade, there has been a world-wide interest in Wireless Sensor Networks.
It will not be an exaggeration to consider WSNs as one of the most researched areas in the last
decade. It has emerged as one of the most promising technologies for the future. Still, WNS is
considered as a new research area as reflected in the rise in research and development budgets
every year. The focus is on developing new communication protocols and management services
to meet the specific requirements sensor nodes such as limited power, processing capacity and
storage. Some hot research topics in WSN are related to topology creation, control and
maintenance. We describe here some leading research projects and work in the domain of WSNs
(Table 4).
 V. Conclusion

The flexibility, fault tolerance, high sensing fidelity, low-cost and rapid deployment
characteristics of sensor networks create many new and exciting application areas for remote
sensing. In the future, this wide range of application areas will make sensor networks an integral
part of our lives. However, realization of sensor networks needs to satisfy the constraints
introduced by factors such as fault tolerance, scalability, cost, hardware, topology change,
environment and power consumption. Since these constraints are highly stringent and specific for
sensor networks, new wireless ad hoc networking techniques are required. Many researchers are
currently engaged in developing the technologies needed for different layers of the sensor
networks protocol stack.

VI. Recommendation

To achieve a better prospective on WSN, every private, public sectors and experts must

participate on building network infrastructures and ensuring current issues regarding WSN are

answered and aware for potential threats so that new services of application acquiring WSN will

not compromise. Acquiring new ways of optimizing WSN will also help reduce the risk, negative

impacts and disadvantages of using WSN even before it will be deployed.

VII. References

[Link], J. Balanay, & M. Talampas.(2017). Development of a Low-cost Wireless Sensor Network

for Monitoring of Earthquakes in Developing Countries.

E. Dadios, & F. Culibrina.(2015). Smart Farm Using Wireless Sensor Network for Data Acquisition

and Power Control Distribution.

J. Jia, S. Zhang, X. Yang, & Z. Li.(2015). Congestion Control Based on Consensus in the Wireless

Sensor Network.

N. Mohamed, J. Al-Jaroodi, I. Jawhar, A. Idries, & [Link].(2017). Unmanned Aerial

Vehicles Applications in Future Smart Cities.

R. Lakshmi, S. Chandanapalli, & S. Reddy.(2014). Design and Deployment of Aqua Monitoring

System Using Wireless Sensor Networks and IAR-Kick.