Hardware Architecture Design for WSN Runtime Extension

Abstract

Internet of Things imposes demanding requirements on wireless sensor networks as key players in context awareness procurement. Temporal and spatial ubiquities are one of the essential features that meet technology boundaries in terms of energy management. Limited energy availability makes anywhere and anytime sensing a challenging task that forces sensor nodes to wisely use every bit of available power. One of the earliest and most determining decisions in the electronic design stage is the choice of the silicon building blocks that will conform hardware architecture. Designers have to choose between dual architectures (based on a lowpower microcontroller controlling a radio module) and single architectures (based on a system on chip). This decision, together with finite state machine design and application firmware, is crucial to minimize power consumption while maintaining expected sensor node performance. This paper provides keys for energy analysis of wireless sensor node architecture according to the specific requirements of any application. It thoroughly analyzes pros and cons of dual and single architectures providing designers with the basis to select the most efficient for each application. It also provides helpful considerations for optimal sensing-system design, analyzing how different strategies for sensor measuring and data exchanging affect node energy consumption.

SensoTube: A Scalable Hardware Design Architecture for Wireless Sensors and Actuators Networks Nodes in the Agricultural Domain

“…Knowledge, skills, and experience have to be demonstrated in fields such as digital and analog electronics, embedded systems, MCUs’ firmware development, power electronics, sensors, radio frequency (RF) communications, wireless networking, printed circuits board (PCB) design, prototyping, testing and evaluation. Furthermore, it is necessary to have a keen awareness of updated solutions launched by the microelectronics industry, which can benefit new systems’ designs (i.e., new integrated semiconductors (ICs), systems-on-chip [ 54 ] and other electronic components, in general). Diving deep into such fields is very often out of scope, for example, in cases where the aim is to monitor a particular physical phenomenon using WSAN technology in-situ.…”

“…In most of the cases, these on-board sensors are not of the proper type and form, in order to be useful in agricultural applications. In addition, as reported in [ 54 ], there are serious limitations in data sampling periods, when a single MCU is responsible for both the networking protocol and the DAQ functions under an operating system. In general, the COTS-based systems leave the development of the DAQ and actuators circuitry in the users’ hands.…”

Managing Emergency Situations in the Smart City: The Smart Signal

“…Signals often have to operate in environments where it is not advisable to perform a wired installation, so energy efficiency becomes a key aspect in design. Therefore, when performing the electronic design of a Smart Signal , it will be critical to take into consideration different strategies of low power design [ 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ].…”

Protocol and Architecture to Bring Things into Internet of Things

“…As we show in [41] to calculate a thing's power consumption, a good characterization of its duty cycle is required. We have defined the figure of merit of power consumption for each type of thing and the routers and we consider constant the power consumption of the gateway.…”

“…where Gtw is the power consumption of the gateway, is the power consumption of a router, is the number of routers, is the power consumption of thing , and is the number of things. As we show in [41] to calculate a thing's power consumption, a good characterization of its duty cycle is required. We have defined the figure of merit of power consumption for each type of thing and the routers and we consider constant the power consumption of the gateway.…”