[CUWiN-Dev] Re: Solar powered nodes, sleep-wakeup scheduling & WSN(Wireless Sensor Network)s

Sascha Meinrath sascha at ucimc.org
Wed Jul 5 09:16:28 CDT 2006


Hi Ashish,

I'm out of town for the next couple weeks, but the CUWiN offices are 
(217)278-3933 x30.  I know Dan just got back to town after a long week working 
on a CUWiN installation -- you can try calling the offices to get in contact 
with him.  It would be fantastic to see additional features integrated into the 
CUWiN feature-set -- having nodes be more energy efficient would be extremely 
useful.  Could you send in an updated timeline/benchmark schedule for what you 
plan to do?

--Sascha

ashish makani wrote:
> Hi Dave,Sacha, Dan & the other folks
> 
> Let me introduce myself ...am ashish makani, & my background is 
> WSN(Wireless Sensor Network) s.
> 
> Let me give a brief background on WSNs here...WSNs are a network of 
> multiple nodes called motes. Motes are basically wireless sensors + a 
> processor, in a match-box form factor .
> 
> So motes are devices, which esentially combine 3things : a processor, a 
> wireless radio(usually zigbee 802.15.4) & 1/more sensors, & typicall run 
> of 2AA batteries.
> The motes (usually) run a lightweight os c/d TinyOS developed @ UCBerkeley
> 
> The beauty of WSNs is that these nodes(or "motes" as they are called in 
> the WSN commuity) run a mesh routing protocol...so if i have 5 of these 
> motes, i power them on, each mote determines, there are other 4 others 
> around it, and each automatically detrmines routes to others. So motes 
> enable "out-of-the-box" networking
> 
> so basically mote = processor+radio+sensor...with the proc running some 
> wireless mesh routing protocol stack
> 
> WSN research has been going on for a a long time, and sleep-wakeup 
> scheduling is a very well studied problem in WSNs ...as the radio 
> consumes quite some power & if the motes were to remain "awake" all the 
> time, the battery powering the mote, would run out in a matter of days.
> 
> So in WSN deployment allmost all of which are in the field, where there 
> is no wired power, it is critical to conserve power by intelligently 
> scheduling so that only a small subset of all the nodes in a n/w are 
> "awake" at any given time & the rest are put to "sleep", with the 
> overall goal of maximizing total network lifetime.
> "sleep" here does not mean zero energy/power consumption but one which 
> is an extremely low Power state in which all mote 
> subsystems(processor,radio,sensor) go to their lowest-energy-consuming state
> 
> But the important difference in the power scheduling of WSNs & CUWiN is 
> that, in WSNs, nodes/motes wakeup when an "interesting event" 
> happens(WSNs are very application specific...popular applications are 
> defence like surveillance,vehicle/person tracking, industrial monitoring 
> & control,etc. & the application defines what an "interesting event" is)
> 
> While in CUWIN,
> the objective of a sleep/wakeup scheduling algo would be to ensure that 
> any time, there are a min.no <http://min.no>. of nodes awake to ensure 
> that the overall CUWIN policy goals/throughput/other QoS parameters are 
> met.
> 
> As mentioned by Dave below, this would necessiate modifiying/atering the 
> core CUWIN routing protocol, which (i think) is HSLS, to make sure that 
> it figures out, in real time, the shortest paths/routes over CUWIN 
> nodes(routers) that are awake at that instant.
> 
> Quoting Dave,
>  I think it is an interesting question, how do you modify a linkstate
>  > routing algorithm so that it spits out both a wake/sleep schedule for
>  > every node, and shortest paths over the routers that are presently awake?
>  > Also, is it very much more difficult to do this if your routers are
>  > hazy-sighted?  There may already be answers in the literature.
> 
> 
> I browsed through Prof. Doug Jones(mentioned by Wendy) publications, & 
> found this paper
> 
> http://www.ifp.uiuc.edu/~jones/pubs/AppadIEEEJSAC2005.pdf 
> <http://www.ifp.uiuc.edu/~jones/pubs/AppadIEEEJSAC2005.pdf>
> 
> For the benefit of folks who might be interested in WSN literature for 
> papers related to sleep-wakeup scheduling & other topics, I am 
> mentioning some of the more popular sensor network bibliographic 
> references below:
> 
> 1.  http://ceng.usc.edu/~bkrishna/teaching/SensorNetBib.html
> 2. ** 
> <http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.research.rutgers.edu%2F%7Emini%2Fsensornetworks.html&ei=bHOrRKa_CqvEaPDJ3ZEI&sig2=2S-0RNAzFNdJSDdj18Ze3Q>http://www.research.rutgers.edu/~mini/sensornetworks.html
> 3. http://appsrv.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~yfzhou/sensor.html
> 4. http://w3.antd.nist.gov/wctg/manet/manet_bibliog.html
> 
> I (personally ) would be very happy to work on the modifications needed 
> to HSLS, to enable nodes to sleep...and would want to discuss this with 
> Dave/Sascha/Dan, off the list in greater detail.
>  
> cheers
> ashish
> 
> p.s. Dave/Sascha/Dan..what would be a good time to chat with u guys on 
> gtalk/some other IM...am in bangalore which is GMT +0530...Let me know 
> what would be a good time for you to chat & then we can fix up a 
> mutually convenient time
> 
> I tried calling OJC Tech office several(7-8) times@ 217- 278-3933, & 
> tried to reach extensions 15 & 24(which are daves& sascha's extensions @ 
> OJC tech but was not able to ....could not even speak to the operator....
> 
>     Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 23:11:34 -0500
>     From: "dan blah" <dan.blah at gmail.com <mailto:dan.blah at gmail.com>>
>     Subject: Re: [CUWiN-Dev] Node power
>     To: cu-wireless-dev at lists.cuwireless.net
>     <mailto:cu-wireless-dev at lists.cuwireless.net>
>     Message-ID:
>             <a210c29f0606282111s1d6ad605h2b4f2d4b0a37c20c at mail.gmail.com
>     <mailto:a210c29f0606282111s1d6ad605h2b4f2d4b0a37c20c at mail.gmail.com>>
>     Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> 
>     sounds like something we talked about at the summit... sneaker net?
>     not nearly as cool as your idea, one of the tdv nodes is running off
>     an inverter run into a solar cell.
> 
>     On 6/26/06, David Young < dyoung at pobox.com
>     <mailto:dyoung at pobox.com>> wrote:
>      > On Mon, Jun 26, 2006 at 01:48:10PM -0500, Wendy Edwards wrote:
>      > > One night when I was having dinner with some CS/ECE friends,
>      > > someone mentioned that Doug Jones (an ECE professor) may have
>      > > done some research related to solar-powered network nodes.
>      > > Has anyone from CU-Win been in touch with him?  If not, I'd be
>      > > happy to send him an email.
>      >
>      > Wendy,
>      >
>      > Solar-powered nodes are interesting to me.  ISTR a few years ago,
>     when
>      > I spec'd the power requirements for one of our Soekris-based
>     nodes, it
>      > would have doubled the price of a node to add to it a solar cell,
>     battery,
>      > and regulator that would keep it alive through even a few days of
>     clouds.
>      >
>      > These days, there are alternatives to the Soekris boards that
>     draw about
>      > 1/3rd the power.
>      >
>      > A neat wireless network would consist of oodles of cheap nodes
>     powered
>      > by small solar cells; the nodes would sleep (to recharge) and wake
>      > on a schedule that guaranteed the network stayed connected.  No node
>      > would have to stay on all the time, so the solar cells could be
>     small.
>      > Deploying such a network would be easy: you would lob the nodes,
>     which
>      > would be wholly self-contained, onto rooftops.  I read about
>     somebody's
>      > study on this kind of solar-powered network somewhere, I just
>     forget who
>      > and where.  I think they were concerned with powering "sensor
>     networks."
>      >
>      > I think it is an interesting question, how do you modify a linkstate
>      > routing algorithm so that it spits out both a wake/sleep schedule
>     for
>      > every node, and shortest paths over the routers that are
>     presently awake?
>      > Also, is it very much more difficult to do this if your routers are
>      > hazy-sighted?  There may already be answers in the literature.
>      >
>      > Dave

-- 
Sascha Meinrath
Policy Analyst    *  Project Coordinator  *  President
Free Press       *** CUWiN               *** Acorn Active Media
www.freepress.net *  www.cuwireless.net   *  www.acornactivemedia.com


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