0 Self Configuring Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are gaining greater momentum as mobile deployed sensing clusters and networks that can be used to gather various kinds of information[1]. In recent years, the application of WSNs has been expanded from military applications to more commercial and consumer pursuits. The use of WSNs in the industry to monitor machine health, critical process parameters and the like is gaining wide currency[2]. Depending on the application, there may be a few wireless sensors to a few thousand wireless sensors in a typical WSN[3]. The key in using WSNs is to provide maximum coverage to the phenomenon under observation with minimal human input. While smaller WSNs are easier to manipulate, the larger WSNs such as those being used to monitor forest fires or traffic conditions may display unstable behaviour. The instability in contemporary WSNs requires constant human input as well as a loss of required information[4]. The implementation of WSNs is not completely reliable as yet given a few research areas that need to be addressed.

Among other things, WSNs are prone to failure from both hardware and software interfaces. The centralised nature of WSNs means that the failure of one central node could lead to a shutdown of the entire network. In a similar manner, an overload of information in the WSN could trigger communication imbalances that could take the entire network offline[5]. The more hardware prone problems such as hardware reliability and battery life maximisation have been under research for a long time[6]. There is an ongoing move in the research community to develop better self configuring WSNs in order to minimise human input and to bolster information collection reliability.
Research Outcomes

The primary object of this research is to outline various factors that affect the self configuring characteristics of a WSN. The typical areas of investigation would include network architecture, gateway control mechanisms, information and traffic management structures etc. The secondary objective of this research would be to establish a working WSN that provides seamless self configuration characteristics. It may not be possible to apply the proposed solution to all situations requiring WSNs but could be considered a step forward. Moreover, this research would deal with the software interfaces of WSNs alone in order to investigate self configuring characteristics.
Research Questions

- What parameters and factors contribute to a failure of self configuration in WSNs?

- What current software management techniques exist for dealing with these factors and parameters especially with respect to self configuration?

- Can self configuration characteristics of smaller WSNs be superimposed to larger WSNs to derive common solutions? If not, what are the impediments?
Research Methods

The research will be sorted into two distinct phases. The first phase will be composed of secondary research where the relevant literature on self configuring WSNs will be explored. The literature will be gathered using scientific, peer reviewed journals and recognised books only through an online search of the relevant scientific databases. The key words used for the search will include (but will not be limited to) “self configuring”, “wireless sensor network”, “WSN”, “WSNs”, “self configuring WSN”, “self-configuring WSN”. The resulting literature will be sorted as per relevance to self configuration. Attempts will be made to use literature no older than five years from the date of the current research.

The secondary research will be augmented by primary research that will construct a WSN in order to investigate the use of contemporary software management in WSNs. The WSN will be expanded as the investigation proceeds and the type of sensor employed such as temperature sensors may be augmented by other types of sensors such as humidity sensors. The resulting WSNs will be simulated to discover various factors that cause issues in self configuration. The findings from the smaller WSNs will be superimposed to the larger WSNs in order to see if the learning is applicable.

References J K Hart and K Martinez, ‘Environmental Sensor Networks:A revolution in the earth system science?’ Earth-Science Reviews 78 (2006)

K Martinez and J K Hart and R Ong ‘Deploying a Wireless Sensor Network in Iceland’ Process Geosensor Networks 5659 (2009)

K Sohraby and D Minoli and T Znati, Wireless sensor networks: technology, protocols, and applications (John Wiley and Sons 2007)

M Niazi and A Hussain, ‘A Novel Agent-Based Simulation Framework for Sensing in Complex Adaptive Environments’ IEEE Sensors Journal 11(2) (2011)

P Garcia, ‘A Methodology for the Deployment of Sensor Networks’ IEEE Transactions On Knowledge And Data Engineering 11(4) 2011

W Dargie and C Poellabauer, Fundamentals of wireless sensor networks: theory and practice (John Wiley and Sons 2010)




[1] W Dargie and C Poellabauer, Fundamentals of wireless sensor networks: theory and practice (John Wiley and Sons 2010)


[2] K Sohraby and D Minoli and T Znati, Wireless sensor networks: technology, protocols, and applications (John Wiley and Sons 2007)


[3] J K Hart and K Martinez, ‘Environmental Sensor Networks:A revolution in the earth system science?’ Earth-Science Reviews 78 (2006) 177-191


[4] K Martinez and J K Hart and R Ong ‘Deploying a Wireless Sensor Network in Iceland’ Process Geosensor Networks 5659 (2009) 131-137


[5] P Garcia, ‘A Methodology for the Deployment of Sensor Networks’ IEEE Transactions On Knowledge And Data Engineering 11(4) 2011


[6] M Niazi and A Hussain, ‘A Novel Agent-Based Simulation Framework for Sensing in Complex Adaptive Environments’ IEEE Sensors Journal 11(2) (2011) 404–412