DTN Sensor Data Carrier
Ubiquitous sensing, enabled by Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technologies, is now a part of modern everyday living. Internetworking all those WSN technologies under a unified network architecture would facilitate the efficient exchange and transfer of information between sensors and data collectors. Such an approach could finally lead in improving both the accuracy of the measurements and the understanding of the respective indicators.
Sensor network deployments though are not always close to traditional communications infrastructure such as the Internet or 3G/4G networks. Even in the case that a stable communications infrastructure is available, problems of intermittent connectivity due to power scheduling, node failure, and packet losses from unpredictable external factors are frequently encountered.
Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) architecture has already been proposed as a solution to all these problems, due to its ability to provide reliable data communication across heterogeneous/failure-prone networks, which also present communication interruptions. [1]
Due to the wide range of benefits provided by such a unification strategy and in order to increase its expertise in this particular area, SPICE formed a team responsible for:
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Expanding SPICE DTN testbed capabilities with support of various sensor communication interfaces such as I2C, RF, Bluetooth, Zigbee, WiFI and 3G
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Interconnecting various types of sensor data collectors and sensors utilizing the SPICE DTN testbed
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Running initial demo experiments to validate the proper operation of (1) and (2)
The ultimate target of this effort for SPICE is to contribute scientifically in this particular research area.
SPICE members involved in this task
References
[1] M. Ho and K. Fall. Poster: Delay tolerant networking for sensor networks. In SECON, October 2004
