OVERVIEW

The Systems Area in CENS focuses on the design and deployment of long-lived self-configuring Embedded Networked Sensing (ENS) systems. With research spanning the spectrum from a study of fundamental properties and algorithms to implementation of practical systems and testbeds, the goal is to develop a comprehensive understanding of how to systematically design, run, and manage ENS systems. These systems are characterized by energy constraints, irregular configurations, time-varying topology, large scale and changing applications, all of which render simplistic hardwired configuration and functions non-scalable. We will use the terms ENS and sensor networks interchangeably.

The overall research effort is divided into three sub-areas: Network Autonomy, Programming and Storage, and Test-beds and tools.

The third thrust, Test-beds and tools, focuses on simulation and emulation tools and instrumented test-beds for systematic design and deployment of ENS systems. This thrust is particularly important, as it is the bridge between the systems research and the various application areas in CENS. Over the past year, perhaps the biggest success story has been the maturation of the Emstar platform. It has seen significant software development, and version 2 is slated for release in a matter of days. It is now a complete sensor network application development platform, with the addition of EmTOS, an emulation mode for TinyOS applications. Our ESS testbed has come along nicely: there have been several rollouts of the hardware and software over this past year, and the testbed is now mature enough to be used on a regular basis. Two new thrusts have added some excitement to this area. The first is the development of a wireless structural data acquisition system called Wisden, which we hope to deploy in the coming months on the Four Seasons structure during their experimentation. A project at an earlier stage, but one which shows great promise, is CameraNet which uses low-power CMOS imagers together with local image processing and has applicability in monitoring habitat ecology.

OBJECTIVES

The objective of research in the systems area is the design and deployment of long-lived self-configuring Embedded Networked Sensing (ENS) systems which are characterized by energy constraints, irregular configurations, time-varying topology, large scale, and changing applications. The research spans the spectrum from study of fundamental properties and algorithms to implementation of practical systems and testbeds, and seeks to develop a comprehensive understanding of how to systematically design, run, and manage ENS systems.