A WSN ARCHITECTURE FOR BUILDING RESILIENT, REACTIVE AND SECURE WIRELESS SENSING SYSTEMS

Abstract

We introduce a wireless sensor network (WSN) architecture intended for massive deployments in custom applications where the primary goal is the collection of low-volume (e.g., telemetric) data possibly augmented with spontaneous special events, like alerts or alarms. The network is built of inexpensive, small-footprint, energy-frugal, possibly mobile nodes running reactive programs and self-organizing themselves into resilient distributed systems in a manner embracing the limited capabilities of the devices as well as the unreliable nature of ad-hoc wireless communication. We propose and elaborate on a holistic approach to constructing complete WSN applications. Our approach incorporates a certain unified programming and communication paradigm. In addition to producing small, energy-efficient, self-documenting and reliable programs for ultra-small-footprint motes, that paradigm enables authoritative virtual execution of complete application, thus facilitating their rapid development, testing, augmentation and modification.