TinyONet: A Cache-Based Sensor Network Bridge Enabling Sensing Data Reusability and Customized Wireless Sensor Network Services.

Eui-Hyun Jung,Yong-Jin Park

doi:10.3390/s8127930

Eui-Hyun Jung, Yong-Jin Park

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/s8127930

Copy DOI

Abstract

In recent years, a few protocol bridge research projects have been announced to enable a seamless integration of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) with the TCP/IP network. These studies have ensured the transparent end-to-end communication between two network sides in the node-centric manner. Researchers expect this integration will trigger the development of various application domains. However, prior research projects have not fully explored some essential features for WSNs, especially the reusability of sensing data and the data-centric communication. To resolve these issues, we suggested a new protocol bridge system named TinyONet. In TinyONet, virtual sensors play roles as virtual counterparts of physical sensors and they dynamically group to make a functional entity, Slice. Instead of direct interaction with individual physical sensors, each sensor application uses its own WSN service provided by Slices. If a new kind of service is required in TinyONet, the corresponding function can be dynamically added at runtime. Beside the data-centric communication, it also supports the node-centric communication and the synchronous access. In order to show the effectiveness of the system, we implemented TinyONet on an embedded Linux machine and evaluated it with several experimental scenarios.

Highlights

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been considered as a key technology for a wide range of application domains that cannot be resolved with traditional wireless ad hoc networks [1, 2, 3]
WSNs are expected to be versatile in many situations [4], but no standards and design rules have been followed in designing sensor network architectures because every sensor application has its own unique purpose and requires various sensor hardware and network capability
The previous research has focused on providing external sensor applications with the transparent end-to-end communication in the node-centric manner

Summary

Introduction

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been considered as a key technology for a wide range of application domains that cannot be resolved with traditional wireless ad hoc networks [1, 2, 3]. WSNs are expected to be versatile in many situations [4], but no standards and design rules have been followed in designing sensor network architectures because every sensor application has its own unique purpose and requires various sensor hardware and network capability For this reason, traditional WSN research projects tend to design their sensor applications depending on specific sensor hardware, network routing schemes, and operating systems. The main purpose of this research is to provide Internet users with a unified interface to transparently access sensor networks using the TCP/IP protocol. It is often argued whether the TCP/IP protocol stack and the node-centric communication are suitable for WSNs or not. If WSNs support the TCP/IP protocol, existing TCP/IP network applications can use heterogeneous WSNs as ordinary network participants and this seamless integration can be used on diverse applications such as a smart space or Generation Network (NGN)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion