Emerging body-wearable sensor devices for continuous health monitoring are severely energy constrained and yet required to offer high communication reliability under fluctuating channel conditions. This thesis aims at investigating the opportunities and challenges in the use of dynamic radio transmit power control for prolonging the lifetime of such devices. We first present extensive empirical evidence that the wireless link quality can change rapidly in body area networks, and a fixed transmit power results in either wasted energy (when the link is good) or low reliability (when the link is bad). We then propose a class of schemes feasible for practical implementation that adapt transmit power in real-time based on feedback information from the receiver. We show conservative, balanced, and aggressive adaptations of our scheme that progressively achieve higher energy savings of 14%-30% in exchange for higher potential packet losses (up to 10%). We also provide guidelines on how the parameters can be tuned to achieve the desired trade-off between energy savings and reliability within the chosen operating environment. Finally, we implement and profile our scheme on a MicaZ mote based platform, demonstrating that energy savings are achievable even with imperfect feedback information, and report preliminary results on the ultra-low-power integrated healthcare monitoring platform from our collaborating partner Toumaz Technology. In conclusion, our work shows adaptive radio transmit power control as a low-cost way of extending the battery-life of severely energy constrained body wearable devices, and opens the door to further optimizations customized for specific deployment scenarios.

Recent advances in wireless sensor networks have led to an emergence of many routing protocols. Limited battery capacity of sensor nodes makes energy efficiency a major and challenge problem in wireless sensor networks. Thus, the routing protocols for wireless sensor networks must be energy efficient in order to maximise the network lifetime. In this thesis, we developed a centralised clustering, energy-efficient routing protocol for wireless sensor networks. Our protocol consists of a cluster head selection algorithm, a cluster formation scheme and a routing algorithm for the data transmission between cluster heads and the base station. The cluster head selection algorithm is performed by the base station using global information of the network. This algorithm aiming at choosing cluster heads that ensure both the intra-cluster data transmission and inter-cluster data transmission are energy-efficient. The cluster formation scheme is accomplished by exchanging messages between non-cluster-head nodes and the cluster head to ensure a balanced energy load among cluster heads. The routing algorithm is based on the optimal transmission range for the data transmission between cluster heads and the base station using multi-hop. The performance of our routing protocol is evaluated by comparing with three existing routing protocols on a simulation platform. The simulation results show that our protocol can achieve better performance in terms of energy efficiency and network lifetime. Because of the centralised algorithm and multi-hop routing, there is a small communication overhead and transmission delay when using our protocol. Since our protocol can save energy and prolong network lifetime, it is well suited for applications where energy and network lifetime are the primary considerations and small overhead and time delay can be tolerated. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1456494 / Thesis (M.Eng.Sc.) - University of Adelaide, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 2009

<p>To predict the lifetime of wireless sensor networks before their installation is an important concern. The IEEE 802.15.4 standard is specifically meant to support long battery life time; still there are some precautions to be taken by which a sensor network system application based on the standard can be made to run for longer time periods.</p><p>This thesis defines a holistic approach to the problem of energy consumption in sensor</p><p>networks and suggests a choice of node architecture, network structure and routing</p><p>algorithm to support energy saving in the network. The idea and thrust of the thesis is that stand-alone measures such as selecting a low-power microcontroller with embedded transceiver will not alone be sufficient to achieve energy saving over the entire network. A comprehensive design study with energy saving as a primary task must be made. Focus given on the design objectives needs to look at different aspects – application code, network configuration code, routing algorithms etc to come up with an energy efficient network.</p>

<p>Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), a collection of “sensor nodes” promises to change the scientist’s approach of gathering the environmental data in various fields. Sensor nodes can be used for non-stop sensing, event detection, location sensing and local control of actuators, this concept gives surety to many latest application areas like agriculture, military, home or factory automation, logistics and so on. Remote surveillance and measurement missions can be performed by using WSNs. The hot research topic now-a-days is to make such networks remotely controllable and adaptive to the environment and mission.</p><p> </p><p>The work carried out in this thesis is the development of a surveillance application using TinyOS/nesC. The purpose of this application is to perform event-detection mission by using any one of the built-in sensor on Mica2 motes as well as a setup protocol is designed to make the WSN remotely controllable and adaptive to the mission. In this thesis, an experimental work is also performed using TinyDB to build up a surveillance system whose purpose is to detect and count the total number of person present at any time in a given room and to view the results at a remote place. Besides these two system applications, a comparative study between TinyDB and nesC is described which concludes that more hardware control can be achieved through nesC which is a more power efficient platform for long-term applications.</p>

<p>There has been a quick development in the wireless network area during the last decade. Mostly </p><p>these days the focus in the wireless area is on very high speed and long range applications. This </p><p>thesis describes how ZigBee is suitable for wireless sensor networks in logistic telemetry </p><p>applications for global managing and monitoring of goods. ZigBee has been developed by the </p><p>organization named as ‘ZigBee Alliance’ as a new wireless standard for the wireless solutions </p><p>based upon the IEEE 802.15.4 Standard [2]. ZigBee is a new technology as compared to the other </p><p>wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, but it has certain characteristics such as low cost, low </p><p>power, support for mesh networking e.t.c which makes its chances to be more successful than </p><p>others. </p><p> </p><p>The other aim of this thesis is to examine different issues related to ZigBee to see its fitness for </p><p>logistic telemetry applications like multi-hop routing issues, routing strategies and design </p><p>requirements. ZigBee is relatively new wireless technology, so there are great deals of promises </p><p>associated with it. In this thesis, a comparison between ZigBee and Bluetooth technologies will </p><p>also be made.</p>

In this thesis, we propose mechanisms to extend the lifetime of wireless sensor networks. In-network data aggregation is considered on both tree-based and flow-based routing protocols during the process of data collection to reduce redundant transmissions. In the flow-based data collection design, we introduce the concept of flow loss multiplier to express the impact of data aggregation over correlated data. The application has the freedom to set the flow loss multiplier to reflect its specific knowledge of correlation. We also introduce traffic balancing as a complementary technique to data aggregation. It helps avoid exhausting the energy of any sensor node while leaving large amounts of energy at other nodes. In tree-based data collection schemes, we adjust the tree structure judiciously to balance energy consumption before any node's failure due to total residual energy depletion. In flow-based schemes, after aggregation, data flows are split and the fragments are spread to increase network lifetime. We investigate the impact of performing greedily data aggregation at the "best" aggregation site regardless of its location, the results of our analysis show that only applying 2-way data aggregation may limit the ability to explore more complex aggregation possibilities. To address this problem, we propose an aggressive data aggregation for a specified application, contour map reconstruction. Based on the simulation results, our aggregation scheme is shown to be able to eliminate large volume of contour data and retain satisfying data accuracy.

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), a collection of “sensor nodes” promises to change the scientist’s approach of gathering the environmental data in various fields. Sensor nodes can be used for non-stop sensing, event detection, location sensing and local control of actuators, this concept gives surety to many latest application areas like agriculture, military, home or factory automation, logistics and so on. Remote surveillance and measurement missions can be performed by using WSNs. The hot research topic now-a-days is to make such networks remotely controllable and adaptive to the environment and mission. The work carried out in this thesis is the development of a surveillance application using TinyOS/nesC. The purpose of this application is to perform event-detection mission by using any one of the built-in sensor on Mica2 motes as well as a setup protocol is designed to make the WSN remotely controllable and adaptive to the mission. In this thesis, an experimental work is also performed using TinyDB to build up a surveillance system whose purpose is to detect and count the total number of person present at any time in a given room and to view the results at a remote place. Besides these two system applications, a comparative study between TinyDB and nesC is described which concludes that more hardware control can be achieved through nesC which is a more power efficient platform for long-term applications.

There has been a quick development in the wireless network area during the last decade. Mostly these days the focus in the wireless area is on very high speed and long range applications. This thesis describes how ZigBee is suitable for wireless sensor networks in logistic telemetry applications for global managing and monitoring of goods. ZigBee has been developed by the organization named as ‘ZigBee Alliance’ as a new wireless standard for the wireless solutions based upon the IEEE 802.15.4 Standard [2]. ZigBee is a new technology as compared to the other wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, but it has certain characteristics such as low cost, low power, support for mesh networking e.t.c which makes its chances to be more successful than others. The other aim of this thesis is to examine different issues related to ZigBee to see its fitness for logistic telemetry applications like multi-hop routing issues, routing strategies and design requirements. ZigBee is relatively new wireless technology, so there are great deals of promises associated with it. In this thesis, a comparison between ZigBee and Bluetooth technologies will also be made.

Wireless sensor network(WSN) is made up of a large number which are deployed in the environment to collect observations. Each sensor node preprocesses and extracts information from the raw observations. Each sensor node also has the ability to communicate with other sensor nodes or a fusion center via wireless channels. Many aspects of WSNs have been investigated recently, such as efficient routing protocols, distributed data compression and transmission, and collaborative signal processing. We investigate the information processing task at the fusion center. Radio transmission is one of the major power consumer, and the required transmission power not linear in distance between the transmitter and the receiver. Hence in this thesis, we consider a decision made at local sensor may need to go through multi- hop for minimal energy consumption. Sensor and relay employed decode and forward protocol. We investigate how to transmission reliability and how to combine the reliability and we proposed a fusion rule when observations are encoded by Turbo code.

The use of a wireless sensor network (WSN) to monitor an historic structure under rehabilitation is the focus of this research. To thoroughly investigate the issue, two main objectives are addressed: the development of a reliable WSN tailored for use in historic structures, and the implementation of the monitoring system in the field to test the feasibility of the WSN and its applicability for structural health monitoring (SHM). Three field studies are undertaken in this research. The Frankford Church, an historic wooden church which required foundation replacement, is the first field study. Sensors monitor tilt of the church’s walls throughout construction. During the construction process, the entire floor of the church is removed and the tree stump foundations are replaced by concrete masonry unit (CMU) blocks and steel pedestals. The tilt in the walls is correlated to the construction process. St. Paul Lutheran, an historic masonry church with timber-framed roof, constitutes the second field study. In this structure, the foundations along the exterior walls are underpinned and the floors are removed and replaced with a floating concrete slab. Detected movements are also correlated to the construction efforts. The Johanniskirche, an historic masonry church with moisture problems, is the final field study case. Real-time and past measured WSN climate data is used to determine the most appropriate solution for the humid climate and resulting condensation problems in this structure. From these results, a moisture migration risk analysis protocol is created for use with a WSN to address condensation issues. The results of the tilt monitoring indicate that the approach is realistic to monitor tilt in the walls of historic structures. For future research, it is recommended to implement motes with higher tilt sensitivity. Also, further development of energy saving algorithms and energy harvesting methods will improve the WSN’s performance. Climate monitoring results show it is feasible to monitor climate conditions of historic structures. The moisture migration protocol provides a basis for further improvement. Implementation of this tool will help predict condensation events and prevent future damage to the historic structure.