Open Standard Development Platforms for Distributed Sensor Networks

William Merrill, Sensoria Corporation, Katayoun, Sohrabi, Sensoria Corporation, Lewis Girod, Sensoria Corporation, Jeremy Elson, Sensoria Corporation, Fredric Newberg, Sensoria Corporation, and William Kaiser, Sensoria Corporation

12/08/2008
(Original Publish Date: 12/10/2001)

In the development of distributed security sensor networks a large variety of prototype systems have been implemented and tested. However these systems tend to be developer specific and require substantial overhead in demonstrating more than one application. To bridge the gap between embedded, networked systems and desktop simulation environments, systems are necessary which are easily deployable and allow extended operation of distributed sensor networks, while allowing the flexibility to quickly test and evaluate a variety of operational algorithms. To enable fast optimization by leveraging the widest development community, open standards for such a portable development system are desired. An open development system allows individual developers and small groups to focus on and optimize specific aspects of a distributed sensor network within realistic deployment constraints, prior to complete integration and deployment of a system within a specific application. By providing an embedded sensor and processing platform with integrated wired and wireless networking, a modular software suite separating access and control of individual processes, and open APIs, algorithm development and software optimization can be greatly accelerated and more robustly tested. To meet the unique needs of distributed sensor network applications, additional separation must be provided between the access to various subsystems, for example real-time embedded control versus tasks with less stringent timing requirements. An open platform that separates these requirements allows developers to accelerate testing and development of applications by focusing on individual components of the distributed sensor system, such as target tracking or low power networking. The WINS NG 2.0 developer's platform, provided by Sensoria Corporation for the DARPA/ITO Sensor Information Technology (SensIT) program, provides one example of such a system. This systems bridge the gap between dedicated desktop development environments and embedded application-specific unattended sensor systems. This system provides open access control to high data rate sensing, local multi-hop wireless and wired networking, node geolocation, the Linux operating system, additional software process separation and control, and a size and power constrained system with access to both high and low level system control. This paper describes the benefits in providing open standards to develop and compare distributed sensor applications while using the WINS NG 2.0 development system as an example of the flexibility and development speed an open system approach facilitates.