In this paper, we introduce and evaluate ScaleMesh, a scalable miniaturized dual-radio wireless mesh testbed based on IEEE 802.11b/g technology. ScaleMesh can emulate large-scale mesh networks within a miniaturized experimentation area by adaptively shrinking the transmission range of mesh nodes by means of variable signal attenuators. To this end, we derive a theoretical formula for approximating the attenuation level required for downscaling desired network topologies. We present a performance study in which we validate the feasibility of ScaleMesh for network emulation and protocol evaluation. We further conduct singleradio vs. dual-radio experiments in ScaleMesh, and show that dual-radio communication significantly improves network goodput. The median TCP goodput we observe in a typical random topology at 54 Mbit/s and dual-radio communication ranges between 1468 Kbit/s and 7448 Kbit/s, depending on the current network load.

Simulators are important tools for analyzing and evaluating different design options for wireless sensor networks (sensornets) and hence, have been intensively studied in the past decades. However, existing simulators only support evaluations of protocols and software aspects of sensornet design. They cannot accurately capture the significant impacts of various hardware designs on sensornet performance.  As a result, the performance/energy benefits of customized hardware designs are difficult to be evaluated in sensornet research. To fill in this technical void, in first section, we describe the design and implementation of SUNSHINE, a scalable hardware-software emulator for sensornet applications. SUNSHINE is the first sensornet simulator that effectively supports joint evaluation and design of sensor hardware and software performance in a networked context. SUNSHINE captures the performance of network protocols, software and hardware up to cycle-level accuracy through its seamless integration of three existing sensornet simulators: a network simulator TOSSIM, an instruction-set simulator SimulAVR and a hardware simulator GEZEL. SUNSHINE solves several sensornet simulation challenges, including data exchanges and time synchronization across different simulation domains and simulation accuracy levels. SUNSHINE also provides hardware specification scheme for simulating flexible and customized hardware designs. Several experiments are given to illustrate SUNSHINE's simulation capability. Evaluation results are provided to demonstrate that SUNSHINE is an efficient tool for software-hardware co-design in sensornet research. Even though SUNSHINE can simulate flexible sensor nodes (nodes contain FPGA chips as coprocessors) in wireless networks, it does not estimate power/energy consumption of sensor nodes. So far, no simulators have been developed to evaluate the performance of such flexible nodes in wireless networks. In second section, we present PowerSUNSHINE, a power- and energy-estimation tool that fills the void. PowerSUNSHINE is the first scalable power/energy estimation tool for WSNs that provides an accurate prediction for both fixed and flexible sensor nodes. In the section, we first describe requirements and challenges of building PowerSUNSHINE. Then, we present power/energy models for both fixed and flexible sensor nodes. Two testbeds, a MicaZ platform and a flexible node consisting of a microcontroller, a radio and a FPGA based co-processor, are provided to demonstrate the simulation fidelity of PowerSUNSHINE. We also discuss several evaluation results based on simulation and testbeds to show that PowerSUNSHINE is a scalable simulation tool that provides accurate estimation of power/energy consumption for both fixed and flexible sensor nodes. Since the main components of sensor nodes include a microcontroller and a wireless transceiver (radio), their real-time performance may be a bottleneck when executing computation-intensive tasks in sensor networks. A coprocessor can alleviate the burden of microcontroller from multiple tasks and hence decrease the probability of dropping packets from wireless channel. Even though adding a coprocessor would gain benefits for sensor networks, designing applications for sensor nodes with coprocessors from scratch is challenging due to the consideration of design details in multiple domains, including software, hardware, and network. To solve this problem, we propose a hardware-software co-design framework for network applications that contain multiprocessor sensor nodes. The framework includes a three-layered architecture for multiprocessor sensor nodes and application interfaces under the framework. The layered architecture is to make the design of multiprocessor nodes' applications flexible and efficient. The application interfaces under the framework are implemented for deploying reliable applications of multiprocessor sensor nodes. Resource sharing technique is provided to make processor, coprocessor and radio work coordinately via communication bus. Several testbeds containing multiprocessor sensor nodes are deployed to evaluate the effectiveness of our framework. Network experiments are executed in SUNSHINE emulator to demonstrate the benefits of using multiprocessor sensor nodes in many network scenarios. / Ph. D.

A smart home is a building equipped with sensors collecting data about its environment. Data collected from smart home buildings can be used for research to improve home automation and develop smart cities. A scalable web-based system can be used to handle the large quantities of data generated from smart homes. Previous studies have been conducted on the requirements of a system collecting sensor data from smart homes, however, information about the presentation of data is still lacking. Because of this research needs to be done on what kind of system handles and presents sensor data well.The aim of this degree project is to identify the requirements of a web-based system handling and presenting sensor data. A scalable web-based system is developed based on the requirements identified from interviews and a literature study. The system shows that sensor data can be presented in a manner which facilitates research. Results show that a scalable web-based system can be used to display and download sensor data with associated information about the data. / Ett smart hem är en byggnad utrustad med sensorer som samlar data om sin miljö. Data insamlad från smarta hem kan leda till förbättringar i hemautomatisering och utvecklingen av smarta städer. Ett skalbart webbaserat system kan användas för att hantera stora mängder data som genereras utav smarta hem. Tidigare studier har genomförts för att framställa kraven utav ett system som samlar in data från smarta hem, dock saknas fortfarande information om hur denna data ska presenteras. På grund av detta behövs forskning om vilket typ av system som kan hantera och presentera data.Målet med detta examensarbete är att identifiera kraven för ett webbaserat system som hanterar och presenterar sensordata. Ett skalbart webbaserat system utvecklas baserat på krav identifierade genom intervjuer och en literaturstudie. Systemet visar att sensor data kan presenteras på ett sätt som underlättar forskning. Resultatet visar att ett skalbart webbaserat system kan användas för att visa och ladda ned sensordata med tillhörande information om datan.

Les grandes évolutions de la technique de systèmes embarqués au cours des dernières années ont permis avec succès la combinaison de la détection, le traitement des données, et diverses technologies de communication sans fil tout en un nœud. Les réseaux de capteurs sans fil (WSN) qui se composent d’un grand nombre de ces nœuds ont attiré l’attention du monde entier sur les établissements scolaires et les communautés industrielles, puisque leurs applications sont très répandues dans des domaines tels que la surveillance de l’environnement, le domaine militaire, le suivi des événements et la détection des catastrophes. En raison de la dépendance sur la batterie, la consommation d’énergie des réseaux de capteurs a toujours été la préoccupation la plus importante. Dans cet article, une méthode mixte est utilisée pour l’évaluation précise de l’énergie sur les réseaux de capteurs, ce qui inclut la conception d’un environnement de SystemC simulation base au niveau du système et au niveau des transactions pour l’exploration de l’énergie, et la construction d’une plate-forme de mesure d’énergie pour les mesures de nœud banc d’essai dans le monde réel pour calibrer et valider à la fois le modèle de simulation énergétique de nœud et le modèle de fonctionnement. La consommation d’énergie élaborée de plusieurs différents réseaux basés sur la plate-forme de nœud sont étudiées et comparées dans différents types de scénarios, et puis des stratégies globales d’économie d’énergie sont également données après chaque scénario pour les développeurs et les chercheurs qui se concentrent sur la conception des réseaux de capteurs efficacité énergétique. Un cadre de l’optimisation basée sur un algorithme génétique est conçu et mis en œuvre à l’aide de MATLAB pour les réseaux de capteurs conscients de l’énergie. En raison de la propriété de recherche global des algorithmes génétiques, le cadre de l’optimisation peut automatiquement et intelligemment régler des centaines de solutions possibles pour trouver le compromis le plus approprié entre la consommation d’énergie et d’autres indicateurs de performance. Haute efficacité et la fiabilité du cadre de la recherche des solutions de compromis entre l’énergie de nœud, la perte de paquets réseau et la latence ont été prouvés par réglage paramètres de l’algorithme CSMA / CA de unslotted (le mode non-beacon de IEEE 802.15.4) dans notre simulation basé sur SystemC via une fonction de coût de la somme pondérée. En outre, le cadre est également disponible pour la tâche d’optimisation basée sur multi-scénarios et multi-objectif par l’étude d’une application médicale typique sur le corps humain. / The great technique developments of embedded system in recent years have successfully enabled the combination of sensing, data processing and various wireless communication technologies all in one node. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) that consist of many of such node have gained worldwide attention from academic institutions and industrial communities, since their applications are widespread in such as environment monitoring, military fields, event tracing/tracking and disaster detection. Due to the reliance on battery, energy consumption of WSNs has always been the most significant concern. In this paper, a mixed method is employed for the accurate energy evaluation on WSNs, which involves the design of a transaction-level system-level based SystemC simulation environment for energy exploration, and the building of an energy measurement system platform for the real world testbed node measurements to calibrate and validate both node energy simulation model and operation model. Elaborate energy consumption of several different node platform based networks are investigated and compared under different kinds of scenarios, and then comprehensive energy-saving strategies are also given after each case scenario for the developers and researchers who focus on the energy-efficient WSNs design. A genetic algorithm (GA) based optimization framework is designed and implemented using MATLAB for the energy aware WSNs. Due to the global search property of genetic algorithms, the optimization framework is able to automatically and intelligently fine tune hundreds/thousands of potential solutions to find the most suitable tradeoff among energy consumption and other performance metrics. The framework’s high efficiency and reliability of finding the tradeoff solutions among node energy, network packet loss and latency have been proved by tuning unslotted CSMA/CA algorithm parameters (used by non-beacon mode of IEEE 802.15.4) in our SystemC-based simulation via a weighted sum cost function. Furthermore, the framework is also available for the multi-scenario and multi-objective based optimization task by studying a typical medical application on human body. Keywords: Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), energy consumption, simulation/emulation, SystemC, testbeds, measurements, calibration, optimization, genetic algorithms, performance metrics, weighted sum cost function, multi-scenario and multi-objective optimization, Pareto-front