Wireless Sensor Network Management and Functionality: An Overview
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paper_title: Design and implementation of a framework for efficient and programmable sensor networks

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Wireless ad hoc sensor networks have emerged as one of the key growth areas for wireless networking and computing technologies. So far these networks/systems have been designed with static and custom architectures for specific tasks, thus providing inflexible operation and interaction capabilities. Our vision is to create sensor networks that are open to multiple transient users with dynamic needs. Working towards this vision, we propose a framework to define and support lightweight and mobile control scripts that allow the computation, communication, and sensing resources at the sensor nodes to be efficiently harnessed in an application-specific fashion. The replication/migration of such scripts in several sensor nodes allows the dynamic deployment of distributed algorithms into the network. Our framework, SensorWare, defines, creates, dynamically deploys, and supports such scripts. Our implementation of SensorWare occupies less than 180Kbytes of code memory and thus easily fits into several sensor node platforms. Extensive delay measurements on our iPAQ-based prototype sensor node platform reveal the small overhead of SensorWare to the algorithms (less than 0.3msec in most high-level operations). In return the programmer of the sensor network receives compactness of code, abstraction services for all of the node's modules, and in-built multi-user support. SensorWare with its features apart from making dynamic programming possible it also makes it easy and efficient without restricting the expressiveness of the algorithms.
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paper_title: Overview of sensor networks

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Wireless sensor networks could advance many scientific pursuits while providing a vehicle for enhancing various forms of productivity, including manufacturing, agriculture, construction, and transportation.
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paper_title: Energy-efficient communication protocol for wireless microsensor networks

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Wireless distributed microsensor systems will enable the reliable monitoring of a variety of environments for both civil and military applications. In this paper, we look at communication protocols, which can have significant impact on the overall energy dissipation of these networks. Based on our findings that the conventional protocols of direct transmission, minimum-transmission-energy, multi-hop routing, and static clustering may not be optimal for sensor networks, we propose LEACH (Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy), a clustering-based protocol that utilizes randomized rotation of local cluster based station (cluster-heads) to evenly distribute the energy load among the sensors in the network. LEACH uses localized coordination to enable scalability and robustness for dynamic networks, and incorporates data fusion into the routing protocol to reduce the amount of information that must be transmitted to the base station. Simulations show the LEACH can achieve as much as a factor of 8 reduction in energy dissipation compared with conventional outing protocols. In addition, LEACH is able to distribute energy dissipation evenly throughout the sensors, doubling the useful system lifetime for the networks we simulated.
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paper_title: Intelligent agents for wireless sensor networks

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Interpolation is a technique used to estimate the value of a function at a given location, assuming that the values of the function are known for surrounding locations. A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a spatially distributed set of sensor platforms usually with a range of sensory modalities e.g. temperature or light intensity. Interpolation can be used to intelligently activate nodes of a WSN for power conservation. In this paper we argue that this can form the basis for a distributed agent-based power management scheme and we propose an algorithm for achieving this. As a corollary to this approach we will also demonstrate the feasibility of using distributed, intelligent agents on computationally challenged devices such as the sensor nodes.
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paper_title: Siphon: overload traffic management using multi-radio virtual sinks in sensor networks

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There is a critical need for new thinking regarding overload traffic management in sensor networks. It has now become clear that experimental sensor networks (e.g., mote networks) and their applications commonly experience periods of persistent congestion and high packet loss, and in some cases even congestion collapse. This significantly impacts application fidelity measured at the physical sinks, even under light to moderate traffic loads, and is a direct product of the funneling effect; that is, the many-to-one multi-hop traffic pattern that characterizes sensor network communications. Existing congestion control schemes are effective at mitigating congestion through rate control and packet drop mechanisms, but do so at the cost of significantly reducing application fidelity measured at the sinks. To address this problem we propose to exploit the availability of a small number of all wireless, multi-radio virtual sinks that can be randomly distributed or selectively placed across the sensor field. Virtual sinks are capable of siphoning off data events from regions of the sensor field that are beginning to show signs of high traffic load. In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of Siphon, a set of fully distributed algorithms that support virtual sink discovery and selection, congestion detection, and traffic redirection in sensor networks. Siphon is based on a Stargate implementation of virtual sinks that uses a separate longer-range radio network (based on IEEE 802.11) to siphon events to one or more physical sinks, and a short-range mote radio to interact with the sensor field at siphon points. Results from analysis, simulation and an experimental 48 Mica2 mote testbed show that virtual sinks can scale mote networks by effectively managing growing traffic demands while minimizing the impact on application fidelity.
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paper_title: TinyDB: In-Network Query Processing in TinyOS

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In accordance with a preferred embodiment of this invention, a commutator for electrical machines having a polymeric spool and aluminum alloy bars uniformly spaced around its periphery is formed. This commutator is useful in low voltage applications wherein the applied or produced voltage may vary from 3 to 30 volts. A critical feature in forming this commutator is the combination of an electrolytic etch and an electrolytic oxide formation on the surface of the aluminum alloy bars. This combination of steps provides means for bonding the aluminum alloy bars to the polymeric spool and also lowers the electrical resistance of alumina. In addition, alloying elements, preferably iron, increase the conductivity of the alumina layer and directionally balance the electrical resistance across the aluminum-alumina junction.
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paper_title: A message-oriented middleware for sensor networks

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The miniaturization of hardware components has lead to the development of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and networked-applications over them. Meanwhile, middleware systems have also been proposed in order to both facilitating the development of these applications and providing common application services. The development of middleware for sensor networks, however, places new challenges to middleware developers due to the low availability of resources and processing capacity of the sensor nodes. In this context, this paper presents a middleware for WSN named Mires. Mires incorporates characteristics of message-oriented middleware by allowing applications communicate in a publish/subscribe way. In order to illustrate the proposed middleware, we implement an aggregation middleware service for an environment-monitoring application.
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paper_title: Maté: a tiny virtual machine for sensor networks

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Composed of tens of thousands of tiny devices with very limited resources ("motes"), sensor networks are subject to novel systems problems and constraints. The large number of motes in a sensor network means that there will often be some failing nodes; networks must be easy to repopulate. Often there is no feasible method to recharge motes, so energy is a precious resource. Once deployed, a network must be reprogrammable although physically unreachable, and this reprogramming can be a significant energy cost.We present Mate, a tiny communication-centric virtual machine designed for sensor networks. Mate's high-level interface allows complex programs to be very short (under 100 bytes), reducing the energy cost of transmitting new programs. Code is broken up into small capsules of 24 instructions, which can self-replicate through the network. Packet sending and reception capsules enable the deployment of ad-hoc routing and data aggregation algorithms. Mate's concise, high-level program representation simplifies programming and allows large networks to be frequently reprogrammed in an energy-efficient manner; in addition, its safe execution environment suggests a use of virtual machines to provide the user/kernel boundary on motes that have no hardware protection mechanisms.
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paper_title: Mobile agent middleware for sensor networks: an application case study

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Agilla is a mobile agent middleware that facilitates the rapid deployment of adaptive applications in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Agilla allows users to create and inject special programs called mobile agents that coordinate through local tuple spaces, and migrate across the WSN performing application-specific tasks. This fluidity of code and state has the potential to transform a WSN into a shared, general-purpose computing platform capable of running several autonomous applications at a time, allowing us to harness its full potential. We have implemented and evaluated a fire tracking application to determine how well Agilla achieves its goals. Fire is modeled by agents that gradually spread throughout the network, engulfing nodes by inserting fire tuples into their local tuple spaces. Fire tracker agents are then used to form a perimeter around the fire. Using Agilla, we were able to rapidly create and deploy 47 byte fire agents, and 100 byte tracker agents on a WSN consisting of 26 MICA2 motes. Our experiments show that the tracker agents can form an 8-node perimeter around a burning node within 6.5 seconds and that it can adapt to a fire spreading at a rate of 7 seconds per hop. We also present the lessons learned about the adequacy of Agilla's primitives, and regarding the efficiency, reliability, and adaptivity of mobile agents in a WSN.
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paper_title: In-Motes Bins: A real time application for enviromental monitoring in Wireless Sensor Networks

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In-Motes Bins is an agent based real time In-Motes application developed for sensing light and temperature variations in an environment. In-Motes is a mobile agent middleware that facilitates the rapid deployment of adaptive applications in wireless sensor networks (WSNpsilas). In-Motes Bins is based on the injection of mobile agents into the WSN that can migrate or clone following specific rules and performing application specific tasks. Using In-Motes we were able to create and rapidly deploy our application on a WSN consisting of 10 MICA2 motes. Our application was tested in a wine store for a period of four months. In this paper we present the In-Motes Bins application and provide a detailed evaluation of its implementation.
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paper_title: In-motes: an intelligent agent based middleware for wireless sensor networks

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Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been identified as a promising technology that will allow people and machines to interact with their environment in a revolutionary way. These networks, however, are facing limitations such as energy constraints of the sensor and difficulties in reprogramming the actual network. To address these limitations we propose a novel agent middleware. Namely In-Motes can be considered as an intelligent network which is deployed with no pre-installed application. Mobile agents are injected into the network, then migrate and clone across it, following specific rules and performing application specific tasks. By doing so, each mote is given a certain degree of perception, cognition and control, forming the basis of its intelligence. Linda-like tuplespaces and federated system architecture are proposed as the means for collaboration and coordination of the agents. In order to make the network more robust, certain behavioural rules are proposed taking inspiration from a community of bacterial strains. These preserve each agent's certain degree of autonomy and identifies a highly coordinated architecture for them.
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Title: Wireless Sensor Network Management and Functionality: An Overview

Section 1: Introduction
Description 1: This section introduces the significance of wireless sensor networks, their foundational concept, and the necessity for efficient network management.

Section 2: Network Management Systems
Description 2: This section details the evolution of network management systems, key functional areas in network management, and their importance in wireless sensor networks.

Section 3: The System Organization of a Sensor Network System
Description 3: This section explains the four approaches to monitoring and controlling wireless sensor networks and categorizes the system architectures as centralized, hierarchical, or distributed.

Section 4: The Functionality of a Sensor Network System
Description 4: This section classifies well-known sensor systems based on their functionality and discusses different architectures and protocols like MANNA, BOSS, LEACH, GAF, WinMS, Sympathy, TinyDB, MOTE-VIEW, Agent Based Power Management, and SenOS.

Section 5: Towards the Design of the In-Motes Middleware
Description 5: This section outlines the design principles for developing an effective middleware solution for wireless sensor networks, focusing on managing limited power/resources, dynamic network topology, quality of service, and security requirements.