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The Future Of Wireless Sensor Networks
Frisky070802 writes "In the 12/03 Wired, Intel's Tiny Hope for the Future describes a fundamental transformation as Intel's Research director David Tennenhouse realized the importance of sensor networks. He saw a Berkeley project on 'motes,' little sensors that communicate on ad-hoc wireless networks. 'The company now foresees networks consisting of thousands of motes, located wherever there's a need for data collection, streaming real-time data to one another and to central servers. Intel imagines the day when every assembly line, soybean field, and nursing home on the planet will be peppered with motes, prodding factory foremen to replace faulty machines, farmers to water fields, and nurses to check on something unusual in room E214.' Intel was impressed enough with the technology to fund a whole 'lablet' to develop it. Intel sees a huge potential market in developing both the sensors and the computation to process the huge amounts of sensor information. If this rings any bells, note that the Intel lablets are also behind the Planetlab Internet emulator, previously discussed in Slashdot."
Is this idea all that original? It seems to me like this is the kind of thing imagined for wireless communication from the start. We already have wireless communication. We already have programs to monitor things and send data. Is it that inventive just to combine the two?
Esoteric reference.
This is a really cool idea.
I hope large amounts of radiation/activity in whatever spectrum these networks will use for cross-node and network-to-server communication won't adversely affect things around it. My gut tells me it probably, unfortunately will.
RD
...would have to be "Intel sees a huge potential market" -- does this fill a real need or is it more technology for shareholders's sake?
This could be really useful for monitoring kids at the sleep lab where I do some work. It's hard enough just getting a myriad (EEG, EOG, ECG, O2, CO2, etc.) of sensors stuck on a kid, the fact that you then end up with huge mass of wires causes all sorts of problems, making it hard for the kid to get to sleep, plus there's the tendancy to pull on the leads, totally destroying the signal (often several times a night).
Isn't this like what http://www.woz.com/ is working on, only with a bigger dream (less likely to happen soon)?
By Vernor Vinge is a very good book that uses that concept a lot.
It discuss, amongts other topics, the consequences of total information awarness brought by a technology similar to this (but better, because its sci-fi, not sci-fact).
You can't take the sky from me...
A sci-fi novel I really enjoyed, 'A Deepness in the Sky' (by Vernor Vinge), has a lot of fun with these types of networks. Great to see some development in this area...
I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering how far off we are from Pham's locators from Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky. Having a mobile sensor network floating in the air that you can use for surveillance may seem Orwellian at first blush, but that isn't the case if we all have access to such technology.
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PlanetLab is not an emulator
Was this not covered in some degree, albeit a non-biological fashion/premise, in The Diamond Age? The talk of motes and dust and sprites all seem to be familiar.
is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
Looks like another dream world to me, even less real than IPv6 is.
As long as we're plugging Vinge, someone should mention _Fat_Times_at_Fairmont_High_ (I think I just did), a novella he just wrote playing with these themes in a very near-future context. Someone upthread mentioned how these things will eventually build up as chemical polution
Like in Neil Stephenson's book. The "toner" wars and the ensuing asthmatic deaths.
Yeah, I'm a sci-fi geek, not a techno geek : )
You can't take the sky from me...
I saw Berkeley and Intel also present on this technology at O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference in 2003. The presentation synopsis is here, although the presentation sadly is not:
e _sess/3797
o rks.htm
:)
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2003/view/
They are doing amazing sci-fi type stuff with their Motes already, it was a pretty amazing presentation, touching on swarm behavior, conspiracy theories, technical deployment issues, and just plain good-old fun hackery. The wired article really should have mentioned that serious hobbyists can purchase a mote starter kit and other stuff here:
http://www.xbow.com/Products/Wireless_Sensor_Netw
Note that there is a classroom starter kit. I would think this sort of stuff would get high-schoolers really excited about science. A great stocking stuffer for your local high-school (although at $1,000 or more maybe a little out of my budget).
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of..... never mind.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
Like the patient's vitals somehow slipping and not being noticed despite the perfectly good monitors used currently in hospitals? I'm reminded of an urban legend said to take place in a South African hospital. Seems that whoever occupied a certain bed in the ICU would kick off during the night. Turns out that the night cleaning person would unplug the breathing machine for that one patient in order to run a floor polisher.
I've always wondered if this is some stupid karma trick, or just two like minded geeks off by a minute or two. Happens often enough to become curious.
See my comment on the one above the parent.
Specifically "A Deepness in the Sky", where his whole book centers on such 'motes', with the ability to say, stick 3 around an eye socket with a little spittle and one near your ear and you've got a wireless communications headset (with video) .. or to monitor temperatures and movement throughout a spaceship .. or etc. etc.
Maybe if more CEOs and 'Directors' read more science fiction they'd have more "ideas" on where to go with their research.
The company I interned for this summer had some of this going on: we had tags we would place on residents for certain purposes (ones that would detect urine in an adult diaper, would alert nurse if a resident pissed themself, and wouldn't sit in thier own piss till a nurse came to check, cut down on urinary tract infections, as well as ones that would detect if a person with alzimers wandered too far from their room, that sort of thing). While not in an ad hoc network style, these would at least alert the nearest CNA that something was ary. And if the alert went unchecked, it would go up the chain of command, possibly to the point where the head nurse or director of the home would be notified, and someones ass would be in trouble. Was an interesting application, though i wasnt lucky enough to have worked on them. I got to work on the CRM software. woo and stuff.
"Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
Of a B-52 Bomber raining motion sensors down on a city. I doubt they would have much tactical use in a non-urban enviroment due to it being so spread out, but in cities being able to tell what's moving on every street corner would kick ass.
See "The Diamond Age"...
the Planetlab Internet emulator
Planet-Lab is not an emulator. It is a group of computers distributed across the globe that use the real internet. People write distributed apps and run them on different vantage points spread out on the net to measure real internet performance, test their app etc.
Also, I think you're right about the orwellian aspect; but I figure this is going to happen anyways. Technology is powerful. There are those who wish to hold power over others. If you look at history, you'll find a hell of a lot of the buggers! And those who want power, will find these wonderful new tools, and put them to their uses. I don't like it, but I think it's the other edge of that double-edged sword called Technology.
The only solution is to (a) put into place systems to keep those people from abusing the technology or (b) wait until they abuse it, and hopefully a structure will come into place through intense struggle that will keep it from happening again.
How convenient...for a company that sells microprocessors ;). As market the penetration of PC's approaches 100%, Intel envisions a future in which everybody needs to have thousands (or millions) of devices with a microprocessor, instead of a just a handful. And of course they require zero human input. Nobody could operate or pay attention to thousands of devices at once.
Some researchers from UC Berkeley's Smart Dust project have founded a startup in Berkeley called Dust, Inc.
cpeterso
ATMega128 7.3 MHz microcontroller
4 KB RAM, 128 KB PROGRAM EEPROM,
512 KB flash memory for measurements
433 MHz wireless radio, CC1000 transciver,
30 messages per second, 29 bytes in each message
radio range is about 100-300 feet
runs on two AA batteries for 3 days continuously
various pluggable sensor boards
The motes run the TinyOS, freely available from sourceforge
The Berkeley guys are working on the dust mote, 1 mm2 target size including the radio chip. The biggest limitation now is the battery power and the radio range. Even if they can get the size down to "dust", the antenna HAS TO BE 1/4 of the radio wave length. For the 433 MHz version this is around 8-10 inches! So these dust motes will have "tails". Eventually, these could painted on the wall, or dumped from the air for millitary applications. Lot's of unsolved problems. For sensor networks, how do you obtain large amount of data through a few base stations? Smart aggregation and routing protocols need to be employed, and the network must process the data by itself.
Just my 2c.
Wireless power transmission is a possibility. At low power levels, it's quite feasible. That's how RFID tags work, after all. In controlled spaces, like hospitals, airports, aircraft, and prisons, it could work.
Doesn't that take a hell of a lot of hard drive space?
R.for on body sensor networks.
it will be the next ui. accelerometers built into gloves, arm, all that. real gesture reckognition.
unless of course neural systems break first.
i hate how age makes me worried about whether or not i should post supposedly obvious things like this. capitalism bites.
Let see, thousands of tiny mote sensors spread throughout your living environment. Does the convenience factor outweigh the privacy factor? I can see law enforcement and marketing corps loving this whole idea. Some future attorney general might try to make embedding these into most consumer products and fabric a requirement.
Law enforcement could use these motes for cheap surveillance and community monitoring. Just think of it - some of the motes would be equipped with mics and DSPs and could be easily enabled by the consumer and/or law enforcement. Other motes would register heat/cool (for A/C & heat control) and could also track people and animals. Heck, specialized motes could be built to detect illegal drug use (pot/crack fumes). Detectives wouldn't even have to get next to your house seeing how you bought that slick wireless router (you had to since owning a wired router would brand you a terrorist with something to hide).
Madison Ave marketing would also love motes. Advertisers could use motes to determine the best time to call you (when you are home) and the best time customize your commercials (when you watch tv). How about a great rate on home insurance - only it will be terminated the moment the sensors pickup impending doom (water leak, structural damage, etc). With consumer electronics going wireless advertisers could have a field day tracking what you buy and how you act to determine what they should market to you.
Then think about the convenience - the A/C-heater could adjust the temp for the room you are in, the whole house, or some pattern possibly based on your behavior. Lights that turn on only for the rooms that are occupied, and to the level the person in that room wants. How about motes that detect that you haven't moved in 24 hours and alerts rescue/coroner. Hey, motes that listen for and act upon your command - "computer - music - light jazz - New Orleans bar after 2am" (motes play recording of bartender telling you the bar is closing and to get the hell out - only not that politely). Motes could tell you your oldest son is smoking in his room, daughter has lit some candles, teenage son is 'enjoying himself', the baby could use changing, and the wife is cheating on you (that wasn't your stain on the bed sheets). All that and more...
The motes could make your life great - in exchange for some privacy. What the heck, you have nothing to worry about as long as you are a law abiding, patriotic (to the current admin, not to the Constitution), well-adjusted citizen...
Ever heard of Dust Inc.? http://www.dust-inc.com/ From their website: DUST TECHNOLOGY Wireless Machine-to-machine Connectivity Dust Inc.'s wireless networking technology integrates objects and conditions in the physical world with data networks. They enable automated awareness and control of the physical environment. Network nodes deliver sensing, communication, logic and control into equipment, objects and environments Local mesh networks enable robust routing of data and instructions between nodes Gateways integrate sensor networks with central control and information systems Ultra-low power operation Advanced algorithms for low-power mesh networking High-efficiency radio and microprocessor design Sophisticated power management techniques for long battery life Reliable, Secure Networking Self-assembling, self-healing network protocol Industry-standard encryption and security Low Total Cost of Deployment Fully self-contained: no need for any wiring Drop and play networking Standard interfaces for retrofits Low Total Cost of Operation Years of operation without replacing batteries Self-reporting of condition and maintenance needs Flexibility and "Future Proofing" One platform, many uses True operating system/application environment Remote upgrade and re-deployment Cross-platform integration Broad support for standard interfaces and protocols
Being a graduate student at MIT working on sensor networks, I have to mention our project. : )
A MPShome.html
http://www-mtl.mit.edu/research/icsystems/uamps/u
The uAMPS project will involve designing integrated circuits that realize wireless sensor networks. There are students researching low power integrated circuits - both analog and digital. I'm doing the wireless stuff.
You have to be careful to separate the hype from reality regarding sensor networks, but there are definitely some cool applications. One thing that I think will definitely help things progress is the new 802.15.4 standard (Zigbee).
doodles
This stuff uses an open source OS, TinyOS which is written in and includes the language nesC, "an extension to the C programming language designed to embody the structuring concepts and execution model of TinyOS. TinyOS is an event-driven operating system designed for sensor network nodes that have very limited resources (e.g., 8K bytes of program memory, 512 bytes of RAM)."
Over the last couple of days I downloaded and installed TinyOS 1.1.0 for windows (146Mb!) which includes nesC, an emulator, a tutorial and cygwin. To my slight surprise it all auto-installed and worked perfectly and can even generate cute graphical self-documentation.
NesC is interesting for at least a couple of reasons - compile-time detection of race conditions, and bi-directional interfaces which specify both the commands which must be implemented by an interface "providers" (ie "servers") and the events (or callbacks) which must be implemented by the interface's "users" (ie "clients").
I'd say that bi-directional interfaces are a significent step in the evolution of object-oriented design, which are being echoed (at a higher level, and in a different technical culture) in the choreography languages of Web Services.
If you enjoy the challenge of learning a new language which is small, different, timely and purposeful, I'd recommend TinyOS and nesC.
In his "Peace on Earth" (1987), Stanislaw Lem provides a view into nanotechnology possibilities and consequences, in his usual brilliant satiric style. It even contains an embedded essay - "The Upside-Down Evolution", which predicts a micro- and nano- directions in the evolution of warfare.
But his first insight of power of self-regulated networks of micro-robots is provided in his novel "The Invincible", written as early as in 1964.
Too bad that Lem is known in the USA mainly by Hollywood's bastardisation of "Solaris"...
I just want the ability to monitor temperatures in house from my computer, have ventilation fans turned on and off automatically through temperature triggers monitored on computer, or manually, etc.
Also, I could use the ability to monitor video cameras over ethernet. The cameras would have to be dirt cheap, and I'd need the ability to monitor multiple cameras on one monitor.
All of this would have to be able to be done on linux, not buying expensive and limiting software to run on windows.
And since I'm not a tech, I'd need the ability to do this without building anything.
I'm sure there are linux projects (I'll look on sourceforge/google) for the video monitoring, but where can I get temperature monitors that work over ethernet, and controls that can turn fans on and off, or control a power switch/outlet to turn on and off, without paying johnson controls an arm and a leg for "home automation" or "building automation" hardware and software. Don't need a home automation setup, just some sensors/controls that are cheap and work over ethernet connectivity. Wireless isn't even necessary.
Anyone out there using any controls like above that they can recommend that are cheap?
... they don't know there's no planets between Earth and Mars Intel@Berkeley
From the Intel at Berkeley site, the page about e-mailing Mars. Tt says planets getting in the way is one problem. As far as I know, no planets come between Earth and Mars!
Some people are working on utilizing e.g. solar power for wireless sensor networks. The PDF files on this page discuss these ideas and are quite interesting, for instance.
This sounds like the right thing for telemetry and control systems. Perhaps they will fit them in the wing flaps and engines on airliners, so they don't need to go to the expense of laying wires or fibre. Or maybe they should fit them in the reactor core of nuclear power stations, so that the reaction can be moderated if it gets to hot. Again, they wouldn't need to go to the expense of laying wires or pneumatic lines. These would be good tests of thier reliability. Another application would be for the brakes on our cars - no need for a cable, just transmit a signal with a mote. Are there any downsides to this technology?
I stole this
Wireless sensor networks are not new; there is even a textbook published recently on them (Wireless Sensor Networks: Architectures and Protocols). Many corporations have active WSN programs, including:
Motorola
Ember and
Figure 8 Wireless.
University research programs, in addition to Berkeley, include:
UCLA WINS
MIT uAMPS
plus those sposored by DARPA.
The IEEE 802.15.4 standard, available here, was designed to support such networks. The ZigBee Alliance, an industrial consortium of over 60 companies, is the marketing and compliance arm of the 802.15.4 standard, as the Wi-Fi Alliance is to 802.11. The vitality of the ZigBee Alliance, which had over 350 attendees at its recent open house in Silicon Valley, is an indication that this technology is moving from research into commercialization; the commercialization of wireless sensor networks is the real significance of the Wired article.
There are many potential applications for wireless sensor networks. A major one is industrial monitoring and control. The cost of monitoring and controling many industrial processes is not determined by the cost of either the sensor or the readout device, but by the cost of the armored cable needed to send the signal from the process to the control point. In certain industries, like the automotive industry, these cables must be regularly torn out as the factory re-tools for the next new model. Wireless sensors, with their inherent low cost, low power, multihop routing capability, can greatly reduce factory capital expense in such cases.
Around the home, there are many places where one wants low data rate communication. Wireless light switches are one example; they can be placed where the user wants them, rather than the home builder, or even just carried around. Wireless thermostats can give the HVAC system a much better idea of which rooms are hot and which are cold; there can be more of them than the wired version since there are no wiring costs. One can imagine a wireless key fob, like the Remote Keyless Entry (RKE) device in cars, that the homeowner could use to lock the house at night before retiring; the single button press could lock the doors and windows, lower the heat to the "sleeping" temperature, etc., and give the user feedback that all is well.
There are additional applications in the intelligent agriculture, automotive, health care, and military markets, plus many others. The list is endless and, like discussing PCs in 1980, I probably haven't hit the killer ap, because someone in his garage hasn't invented it yet.
Interesting points you raised. Navy's been working on some things that will be quite useful for several years now; one is a condition sensor based on accelerometers. The devices reside on a chip and use a neural network to determine when a piece of machinery needs serious attention. A different device senses oil quality and calls for an oil change when chips or burnt oil are detected. These are being designed for installation in Ship Service Diesel Generators, so you know they are being designed for very rough vibration environments. How about fire trucks and locomotives, highway trucks, cars, etc., next? One key point about them is that they only report when something is wrong - or about to go wrong - so the power requirements are very small compared to SCADA or similar systems' sensors that report status frequently.
I agree wholeheartedly with what you say about the days when Bell Labs and IBM Research did unfettered research.
Unfortunately, these companies were under "market attack" by companies like Dell, which does no technical research at all. They're also under "analyst attack" by Wall Street types measuring progress one quarter at a time, with little eye to the long term.
The logical consequence of this is that research gets "focused," unfortunately.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
We're at it at Southampton too - http://envisense.org/
Kenji
This was covered Ready to Ware in the October 2003 issue of IEEE Spectrum, now only available in the Google cache linked in this sentence.
It specifically covers "[a]n e-textile shirt from New York City-based Sensatex, Inc. [which] promises to put an end to SIDS by alerting parents the moment a baby stops breathing." Other bits of the article talk about the U.S. Navy's Wearable Motherboard project, and other smart fabrics capable of accomplishing the tasks of which you speak.
If your lab has a grant application coming up, it might be worth putting in for some of this stuff.
"But always she's the spectre of uncertainty I first endured, then faded, then embraced..."
As mentioned before by many slashdotters the motes (mica) have a huge resource constraint problem. I have been working on motes for the past two years..The sound sensors are really really weak and inaccurate. We have been trying to get accurate sound sensor readings for a long time. Say you are applying varying amplitude of sound near a mote. Though the readings changes, they are neither linear nor follow a consistent pattern.. anyway, there is a long way in terms of the OS design and sensors..
It's also possible to make magnetic loop antennas, which can be quite efficient. I use one for ham radio; it works as low as the 40m band, but is only about 30 inches in diameter.
In addition to research-grade and hobbyist software and hardware, some companies are beginning to sell more user-friendly stuff. Sensicast Systems in particular offers a couple of software products for Crossbow MICA2 sensor boards. Of particular interest is the Development System software which allows a user with Xbow nodes to configure them and aggregate data from them into a database -- great for people just wanted to try to get their own sensor network running. They also have their own "H900" wireless sensor net system that automatically does temperature and humidity sensing or pressure sensing.