No abstract

No abstract

Advances in vehicle intelligence technology is enabling the development of systems composed of unmanned vehicles, which are able to interact with devices spread on the environment in order to take decisions related to their movements. Sensor networks represent an area that can profit a lot of this new possibilities, as autonomous vehicles can be used to carry sensor devices, which interacting with static sensor nodes can enhance the results provided by the overall system. However, some problems arise in applications' development in such systems due to the network nodes heterogeneity, and also the dynamicity of the environment in which they are deployed, which changes constantly. Thus, new platform solutions are necessary to handle the heterogeneous nodes capabilities in order to facilitate coordination and integration among them. This paper proposes a supporting infrastructure to address these problems composed of an adaptive middleware and a customizable sensor node platform. The goal is to support cooperation in heterogeneous sensor networks, which are composed by static and mobile nodes with different capabilities. The middleware adapts itself in order to manage the very distinct com puting resources of the nodes, and also changes in the environment and in the application demands. The customizable sensor node platform allows optimizations in hw/sw modules to meet specific application requirements, allowing the creation of low-end and resource rich nodes that work in an integrated network. In order to illustrate the proposed approach, a system for military surveillance applications is presented as case study.

Abstract:Sensor networks are being used to implement different types of sophisticated emerging applications, such as those aimed at supporting ambient intelligence and surveillance systems. This usage is enhanced by employing sensors with different characteristics in terms of sensing, computing and mobility capabilities, working cooperatively in the network. However, the design and deployment of these heterogeneous systems present several issues that have to be handled in order to meet the user expectations. The main problems are related to the nodes' interoperability and the overall resource allocation, both inter and intra nodes. The first problem requires a common platform that abstracts the nodes' heterogeneity and provides a smooth communication, while the second is handled by cooperation mechanisms supported by the platform. Moreover, as the nodes are supposed to be heterogeneous, a customizable platform is required to support both resource rich and poorer nodes. This paper analyses surveillance systems based on a heterogeneous sensor network, which is composed by lowend ground sensor nodes and autonomous aerial robots, i.e. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), carrying different kinds of sensors. The approach proposed in this work tackles the two above mentioned problems by using a customizable hardware platform and a middleware to support interoperability. Experimental results are also provided.

Abstract. With the growth and the development of new applications for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), sensor nodes are able to handle more complex events that require higher processing performance and hardware flexibility. These new features intend to meet the requirements of various applications, as well as to provide customized platforms that have only the needed resources. WSNs often need a flexible architecture able to adapt to design and environment changes. The use of reconfigurable architectures is an alternative to bring more flexibility and more processing capability for the sensor node. This paper proposes a reconfigurable and customizable sensor node called FemtoNode which has a reconfigurable platform and a wireless module to support applications for WSNs, using an object-oriented language Java as specification language of its architecture. The proposed concepts were validated with a case study of an heterogeneous wireless sensor network composed of sensors nodes based on different platforms, whose results are described in this work.