Design and implementation of dynamic mobile sensor network platform

Abstract

This article presents the design and implementation of a dynamic mobile sensor network platform consisting of stationary sensors, mobile sensors, mobile sensor gateways, and sink servers. The sensor network platform supports heterogeneous protocols in the network layer and performs ID-based communications to deliver sensor data from the sensors to the sinks, as well as to send control and monitoring commands from the sensor owner or administrator to the mobile sensors and mobile sensor gateways. To provide sensor data reliably irrespective of the sensor locations, the mobile sensors and mobile sensor gateways natively support mobility and multihoming and possess network access authentication and data transport security functions. The sensor owners can freely install new applications over already-deployed mobile sensors and mobile sensor gateways. They can configure the mobile sensors to operate in lightweight or full-function modes depending on the sensor application requirements or available networking environments. The technical feasibility of the proposed mobile sensor network platform has been demonstrated by implementing a prototype system.