Abstract
Observing microclimate changes is one of the most popular applications of wireless sensor networks. However, some target environments are often too dangerous or inaccessible to humans or large robots and there are many challenges for deploying and maintaining wireless sensor networks in those unfriendly environments. This paper presents a mobile sensor network system for solving this problem. The system architecture, the mobile node design, the basic behaviors and advanced network capabilities have been investigated respectively. A wheel-based robotic node architecture is proposed here that can add controlled mobility to wireless sensor networks. A testbed including some prototype nodes has also been created for validating the basic functions of the proposed mobile sensor network system. Motion performance tests have been done to get the positioning errors and power consumption model of the mobile nodes. Results of the autonomous deployment experiment show that the mobile nodes can be distributed evenly into the previously unknown environments. It provides powerful support for network deployment and maintenance and can ensure that the sensor network will work properly in unfriendly environments.
Highlights
Wireless sensor networks are changing our way of life just as the Internet has revolutionized the way people communicate with each other
When we design a mobile node for wireless sensor networks, we can add various locomotion modules to the sensor nodes so that they can move from place to place
We have presented a mobile sensor network system for monitoring of unfriendly environments
Summary
Wireless sensor networks are changing our way of life just as the Internet has revolutionized the way people communicate with each other. Some environments cannot be accessed by humans or large robots because of terrain and space limitations In all these situations, wireless sensor network users will face many challenges, such as deployment, network maintenance and repair. Some additional sensor modules need to be added to the CotsBots platform in order to get better performance in a sensor network environment. Other similar platforms such as Millibots, MICAbot and Racemote have met the concept of mobile sensing [5,6,7,8,9]. The existing platforms have provided initial support for developing large-scale mobile sensor networks and distributed robotics, their controllability still needs improvement.
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