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Design of a Continuous Monitoring and Tracking System based on Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

Today the way we work and live has been changed by the deployment of ubiquitous intelligent wireless sensor networks. The infusion of such emergent technology into the current under- graduate lab designs becomes a critical issue in order to prepare and engage our students for future engineering and technology development. Such new modules will allow students to have improved learning experience through more involvement in research and hands-on activities and better outcome. This paper presents the experience of undergraduate research during summer 2008 supported by NSF REU program at the University of Houston on “Sensor Networks and security Infrastructure”. The project also serves to upgrade existing upper level design projects that aim at introducing research components into the curriculum of the computer engineering technology program.

Introduction

Wireless smart sensor networks have the ability to integrate sensing, communication and computation and are being implemented in a wide range of data gathering and decision making applications. Their low cost, compact size and low power consumption makes them ideal for wider deployment. This presents considerable difference from the traditional networks and as the result requires proper design in terms of the protocols used, energy use as well as mobility in smart wireless networks must be carefully studied. The integration of smart sensor networks with wireless transmission systems are expected to provide a wide range of services with various constraints including but not limited to variable quality of service and time-varying bandwidth requirements. Recently various applications of wireless smart sensor networks such as remote measurement systems1, 2, remote lab simulation of actual experiments3 have been realized with minimum bandwidth and cost.

A critical issue with wireless sensor nodes is effective power management to extend battery life. The reason this is such an important issue is because it is often difficult or infeasible to replenish power supplies of these wireless devices. The power supply in the sensors is used for several purposes: for sensing, for powering the memory and CPU, and for communication with other sensors in the network. Different applications and sensors draw different amounts of energy but most literatures indicate that communication is a major power drain4, 5. Some sensors try to be aware of this and will shut down certain components like radio when they are not needed. They may also scale voltage or frequency of the processor depending on the workload6.

Well engineered sensors can result in power conservation but for a variety of applications, further gain can be observed if the network is designed properly and by the algorithms implemented in the program to be downloaded onto the microprocessor. In this paper we present the design and development of a continuous monitoring and tracking system using emergent smart wireless sensor network that can be widely used in applications such as security system, patient monitoring and tracking, etc.

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DiTraglia, J., & Yuan, X., & Moges, M. (2009, June), Designing A Continuous Monitoring And Tracking System Based On A Wireless Sensor Network Paper presented at 2009 Annual Conference & Exposition, Austin, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--5013