Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) at UVA

 

John Stankovic, Sang Son, Kamin Whitehouse

 

 

 

Current Post Docs

none

Current Graduate Students

Anthony Wood
Jingyuan Li
Vibha Prasad
Qi Mi
Pascal Vicaire
Hua Cao
Qiang Li
Shan Lin
Vijay Srinivasan
Yafeng Wu
Hengchang Liu
Velamur Srinivasan
Tamim Sookoor
Timothy Hnat
Jiakang Lu
Jian Lu
Zhiheng Xie
Chenguang Xu

Research Partners


Tian He, University of Minnesotta
Tarek Abdelzaher, UIUC
Chenyang Lu and G. Catlin-Roman, Washington University
Bruce Krogh, CMU

It is now possible to develop large numbers of small smart components that combine computing power, wireless communication capabilities, and specialized sensors and actuators. These components or nodes may be deployed in thousands to achieve a common mission. They may be used to monitor poorly accessible or dangerous environments such as the ocean floor, neighborhoods of volcanic activities, hostile territories (e.g., behind enemy lines), disaster areas, and nuclearly active fields. They may also be deployed to accomplish interactive tasks such as finding and detonating enemy mines, looking for survivors of natural disasters, or containing and isolating oil spills to protect a nearby coastline. These wireless sensor devices are also useful for environmental monitoring, medical applications and smart homes or buildings. The new technology creates a different set of challenges arising from the fact that:

Nodes are embedded into a geographic landscape and interact tightly with the physical environment in real-time.
Nodes are smaller and less reliable than traditional network routers.
Nodes generate (and possibly store) data from sensors unlike traditional routers.
Nodes operate under severe constraints on power, computation, bandwidth and memory.
Nodes may be mobile.

 

In particular, our work includes developing MAC and routing layer solutions, group management based on novel "enough" semantics, analysis and implementation techniques for achieving aggregate behavior, novel data services protocols including sensor net querying capabilities, development of a sophisticated event service for WSN, protocols for power management, protocols for computer security, and developing new paradigms for sensor net programming. We are working with a testbed of MICA and XSM motes. We have built and evaluated a 203 node system at Fort MacDill AFB and Avon Park called VigilNet. This system is for detection, tracking and classification with power management capabilities that extends the lifetime of the system significantly. We have extended this system and implemented a novel tripwire power management system. We have presented many demonstrations of the improved system. Our research partners include CMU and the University of Illinois.

We are extending our work into both the medical and environmental science domains. In the medical arena we are building a testbed to emulate WSNs in assisted living facilities. This system is called AlarmNet. We are working with the UVA medical school and Harvard. See also Wireless Networking for Assisted Living and Other Medical Applications. See also Hardware We Developed for Medical Applications.

We are also building a testbed for an environmental science called Luster that mimics a system that requires both periodic monitoring and event based actions. We are collaborating with the Environmental Sciences department at UVA. Plans include demonstrating our system on the Eastern Shore of Virginia where various environmental studies have been ongong since the early 1980s. See also Luster and SeeMote.
 
 

Best Paper Awards



 
 

Other Awards

  • Entrepreneurial Vision Award, 4th Annual S.E.E.D. Spirit of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development - Venture Forum, Santa Barbara, Calif., Team Leader, Johns Hopkins, Team Members, Harvard and UVA.
  • Award, 2nd Best Emerging Company Investment Opportunity, 4th Annual S.E.E.D. Spirit of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development - Venture Forum, Santa Barbara, Calif., Team Leader, Johns Hopkins, Team Members, Harvard and UVA.

Selected Publications