Most WSN systems are implemented in a centralized way. Sensors report their readings to central point, such as a sink or a gateway. The gateway (or a server in the cloud) may process the collected information and send messages back to the WSN network for further distribution to actuators for steering the system. Such a system is depending on the reliability of the gateway (or the cloud server or the gateway connection). An alternative approach is to make it distributed where the decision and steering are based on local sensing and distributed algorithms. In this way, a few node failures will not bring down the entire system. The gateway will only be responsible for non-time critical tasks, such as data logging, and management.

The students will design and implement a distributed WSN for controlling electric heaters in a small room with a couple of temperature sensors. Alternatively, we will be controlling lighting in a room using light sensors given different amount of sun light and other external lights.

The project combines both theoretical studies on algorithms as well as a practical demonstration that it is possible to do a local and distributed steering. It is anticipated that the projects will result in follow-on projects for master theses.

Team size 3 - 5 persons

We will use Contiki and Zolertia Z1 sensors with off-the-shelf sensors for this project.

To be decided. Martin Jacocobsson and Kostis Sagonas responsible.