What Is Sensing?: Physical Object or Process, Including The Occurrence of Events

What is sensing?
• Sensing is a technique used to gather information about a

physical object or process, including the occurrence of events
(i.e., changes in state such as a drop in temperature or
pressure).
• An object performing such a sensing task is called a sensor.
• For example, the human body is equipped with sensors that
are able to
– capture optical information from the environment (eyes),
acoustic information such as sounds (ears), and smells
(nose).
Continued
• These are examples of remote sensors, that is, they do not
need to touch the monitored object to gather information.
• From a technical perspective, a sensor is a device that
translates parameters or events in the physical world into
signals that can be measured and analyzed.
Definition
• Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs):
– Highly distributed networks of small, lightweight
wireless nodes,
– Deployed in large numbers,
– Monitors the environment or system by
measuring physical parameters such as
temperature, pressure, humidity.
• Node:
– sensing + processing + communication
3
Steps performed in sensing task
Continued
• Sensor networks are not just passive instruments!
• We can push processing and “intelligence” into the network.
• Processing can happen at many levels:
 On individual sensor nodes.
 At aggregation points within the network.
 At the base station or gateway.
• For the first time, sensor networks allow us to:
1) Observe the world (environment, buildings, people, etc.) at
very high spatial resolutions;
2) Make these observations continuously; and
3) Collect the observations in digital form.
• Some have referred to this concept as a “macroscope” --
- a scientific instrument that observes entire systems.
Active and Passive sensors
• Choosing a sensor for an application depends on the physical
property to be monitored, for example, such properties
include temperature, pressure, light, or humidity.
• Besides physical properties, the classification of sensors can
be based on a variety of other methods, for example, whether
they require an external power supply. If the sensors require
external power, they are referred to as active sensors. That is,
they must emit some kind of energy (e.g., microwaves, light,
sound) to trigger a response or to detect a change in the
energy of the transmitted signal.
• On the other hand, passive sensors detect energy in the
environment and derive their power from this energy input.
Classification of sensors
Components of WSN
• While many sensors connect to controllers and processing
stations directly (e.g., using local area networks), an increasing
number of sensors communicate the collected data wirelessly
to a centralized processing station.
• This is important since many network applications
require hundreds or thousands of sensor nodes, often
deployed in remote and inaccessible areas.
• Therefore, a wireless sensor has not only a sensing
component, but also on-board processing, communication,
and storage capabilities.
Continued
• When many sensors cooperatively monitor large
physical environments, they form a wireless
sensor network (WSN).
• Sensor nodes communicate not only with each
other but also with a base station (BS) using their
wireless radios,
• These nodes can disseminate their sensor data to
remote processing, visualization, analysis, and
storage systems.
Overall Architecture of a sensor node
Application Layer Sensor
Communication
SubSystem Sensor Node CPU
Network Layer
Slow Serial Link
MAC Layer
Physical Layer Radio Board
Forward Packet Path

Wireless Channel
Wireless sensor network
Why are Sensor Networks Special?
• Matchbox-sized to Shoebox-sized nodes

– MICA motes: 4 MHz, 32 KB, 15 kJ, 30 m
– Sensoria sensor: 400 MHz, 32 MB, 300 kJ, 100 m
• More severe power constraints than PDAs, mobile phones,
laptops
• Mobility may be limited, but failure rate higher
• Usually under one administrative control
• A sensor network gathers and processes specific kinds of
data relevant to application
• Potentially large-scale networks comprising of thousands
of tiny sensor nodes
Sensor Network Scenarios
Source
Sink Sink
Sink Internet
Single hop vs multi hop
• When the transmission ranges of the radios of all sensor
nodes are large enough and the sensors can transmit their
data directly to the base station, they can form a star topology
as shown on the left in Figure .
• In this topology, each sensor node communicates directly
with the base station using a single hop. However, sensor
networks often cover large geographic areas and radio
transmission power should be kept at a minimum in order to
conserve energy; consequently, multi-hop communication is
the more common case for sensor networks (shown on the
right in Figure ).
• In this mesh topology, sensor nodes must not only capture and
disseminate their own data, but also serve as relays for other
sensor nodes, that is, they must collaborate to propagate
sensor data towards the base station.
• This routing problem, that is, the task of finding a multi-hop
path from a sensor node to the base station, is one of the
most important challenges.
Single hop vs multi-hop communication in
sensor networks
Single-hop vs. Multi-hop Networks
Single-hop networks
Sink
Source Obstacle
Multi-hop networks
Typical characteristics of WSN
• Tiny, low-power, wireless sensors
• Minimal CPU, memory, and radio
Typically 8 Mhz CPU, 10 KB RAM
100 m radio range, IEEE 802.15.4
• Extremely low power
A pair of AA batteries can power a mote
for months or years!
What are motes?
Motes mainly consist of three parts:-

• Mote basically consists of a low cost and power
computer.
• The computer monitors one or more sensors.
Sensors may be for temperature, light, sound,
position, acceleration, vibration, stress, weight,
pressure, humidity, etc.
• The computer connects to the outside world with a
radio link.
Examples for Sensor Nodes
UCLA: WINS
UC Berkeley:
UC Berkeley: COTS Dust Smart Dust
JPL: Sensor Webs
Rockwell: WINS
21
Examples for Sensor Nodes
Rene Mote
Dot Mote
Mica node weC Mote
22
Examples of sensor nodes
MicaZ(Crossbow)
Tmote Sky (Sentilla)
Rene(Berkeley)
Imote2(Intel)
Mica 2 Motes
• These motes sold by Crossbow were
originally developed at the University of
California Berkeley.
• The MICA2 motes are based on the
ATmega128L AVR microprocessor. The
motes run using TinyOS as the operating
system. MICA 2 MOTE
• Mica2 mote is one of the most popular Ref:http://www.xbow.com/Products/Product_

and commercially available sensors which pdf_files/Wireless_pdf/MICA2_Datasheet.pdf
are marketed by CrossBow technologies.
Telosb Motes
• Telosb motes have USB programming capability
• An IEEE 802.15.4 compliant, high data rate radio with
integrated antenna, a low-power MCU
• There are also equipped with extended memory and
an optional sensor suite
TELOSB MOTE
Ref:http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~culler/eecs194/labs/lab1/telosb.JPG
One Example Sensor Board - MTS310
Wireless sensor network scenario

What Is Sensing?: Physical Object or Process, Including The Occurrence of Events

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What is sensing?

• Sensing is a technique used to gather information about a

Slow Serial Link

Forward Packet Path

• Matchbox-sized to Shoebox-sized nodes

Motes mainly consist of three parts:-

JPL: Sensor Webs

Mica node weC Mote

• Mica2 mote is one of the most popular Ref:http://www.xbow.com/Products/Product_

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