SENSORS: Hourglass: An Infrastructure for Sensor Network

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal will address research issues such as: how to construct sensors that can usefully function for tens or hundreds of years; how to construct and manage such sensors on a limited power budget, and how to construct an infrastructure that can collect data from deployed networks of sensors and route that data efficiently to the applications that need them; how to build a system capable of supporting applications that we cannot even imagine today, and what is the business value of these systems and how can they fundamentally transform the services that can be provided. The proposed system to be developed under this project has three overall components: the sensor networks themselves, the infrastructure that we call a data collection network, and the tools necessary to enable development of real applications. At the hardware level, construction of low-power, long-lived devices will be developed and energy-efficiency goals will be met by leveraging all levels of the design hierarchy: from the circuits, architecture, and software. At the infrastructure level. Hourglass is an architecture for dynamically directing data and control between sensors and applications, and is designed to be flexible enough to adapt to unforeseen applications and to cope with sensor networks that are embedded infrastructures designed to last many years, by enabling adaptivity to rapid advances in technology while still retaining the ability to interact with legacy sensor networks, which cannot be changed for logistical reasons. At the application layer, real problems who can ensure that the systems to be build solve real problems in business, medicine, and environmental monitoring. These three layers are connected via both wired and wireless communication links and we propose to address fundamental questions related to: 1) the development of a power efficient adaptive communication protocol with embedded prioritized MAC for intra-node communications and control and 2) the development of Over The Horizon (OTH), a long distance communication protocol between the sensor network and the outside world in case of support network infrastructure failure in cases such as in the event of an emergency.