CS-541

Wireless Sensor Networks

Lecture 1: Introduction to CS-541 and Wireless Sensor Networks

Spring Semester 2017-2018

Prof Panagiotis Tsakalides, Dr Athanasia Panousopoulou, Dr Gregory Tsagkatakis

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Today’s Objectives

• CS-541 Overview

• Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN)

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About CS-541

• Lectures: Monday and Wednesday 14.00-16.00, H208 &

• Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 13.00-14.00, E304

• Prerequisites: Computer Networks (CS-335), Applied Mathematics for

Engineers (CS-215)

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About CS-541

• Theory, design and development aspects of WSN

• Introduction to this field
• Signal processing and network perspective

Network Protocols &

Communication
Standards

Data acquisition,
Programming
Distributed Signal
Simulation and
Processing and
Data Analysis
Machine Learning

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 About CS-541 12/02/2018 – 18/05/2017
Contents
Lecture 1: Introduction to WSN and CS-541 course
Lecture 2: Protocol stacks, and wireless networks prerequisites.
Lecture 3: Network standards for Personal and Body-area networks
Lecture 4: Signal processing prerequisites.
Lecture 5: Signal Sampling for WSN
Lecture 6: Radio Duty Cycling in WSN
Lecture 7: Routing in WSN
Lecture 8: Data models and data acquisition
Lecture 9: Machine Learning for WSN
Lecture 10: Introduction to WSN programming
Lecture 11: Hands on Session I
Lecture 12: Machine learning applications in WSN
Lecture 13: Invited Lecture I
Lecture 14: Hands on Session II
Lecture 15: Special issues in WSN: Deployment & Coverage Nancy Panousopoulou
Lecture 16: Invited Lecture II Gregory Tsagkatakis
Lecture 17: Big Data & IoT Maria Aspri / Antonis Tzougarakis
Lecture 18: Projects progress presentations
Invited Speaker
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You 
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About CS-541

Learning Outcomes

• Essential theoretical background and practical skills for the

design and development of WSN

• State-of-the-art techniques for sensing data management

• Hands on experience with WSN technological platforms and

programming tools

• Develop a research project in a multi-disciplinary field of

engineering

• Improve problem solving and presentation skills

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About CS-541

Practical Information

• 3 individual homeworks on the material taught (30% of your final grade)

• Exercises on MATLAB
• Contiki / Cooja
• 1st assignment will be handed out at the middle of February
• 2 weeks time to complete each assignment (hard deadline).

• Standalone project (max for 2 students) (50% of your final grade)

• Research topic
• Experimental work / analysis on experimental data
• Submission of a project report in a technical paper form (motivation, related work, problem
formulation, adopted methodology, results, conclusions & outlook)
• Duration: mid of April - End of semester (~mid of June)

• Written Exam (20% of your final grade)

All above are compulsory for getting a grade at the end of the exam

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About CS-541

Bibliography:

"Guide to Wireless Sensor Networks",S. Misra, I.

Woungang, S. C. Misra, 2009, Springer

"Wireless Sensor Networks: An Information Processing

Approach”, F. Zhao, L. Guibas, 2004, Elsevier / Morgan
Kaufmann

+ Handout notes, technical & research papers, etc.

(distributed during lectures & available at CSD servers)

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About CS-541

http://www.csd.uoc.gr/~hy541

• Contact Instructors & Teaching Assistant: hy541@csd.uoc.gr

• Course Email list: hy541-list@csd.uoc.gr

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Introduction

Wireless Sensor Networks combine sensing, processing and

networking over miniaturized embedded devices → sensor nodes

Key Features that differentiate them from conventional data networks

 Power autonomous (operating mainly on batteries)

 Highly scalable: distributed in scales of hundreds (or thousands)
 Operate in a ad-hoc manner, i.e., does not require fixed
infrastructure (e.g. GSM or WiFi routers)
 Easy to deploy
 Cost-effective (cheap hardware)
 Low data rates (max 1Mbps)

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Introduction

Key characteristic that distinguishes them from remaining networks is

the reasoning of existence:

Collect information from the physical environment – regardless of

how easily accessible that is;
Couple the end-users directly to the sensor measurements ( cyber
to physical space);
Provide information that is precisely localized (in spatio-temporal
terms) according to the application demands;
Establish a bi-directional link with the physical space (remote &
adaptable actuation based on the sensing stimulus)

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 Introduction
What: Necessary means for interacting with the “physical”
space…

How: Distributed / Decentralized Network &

Processing Algorithms on cheap hardware

Allowing networking to become coupled with the

needs of sensing, control and information
semantics
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Introduction

Application Areas: Everywhere there is a need for monitoring a physical

space OR using sensors for controlling a procedure. For example:

 Industrial Control: Networked Control Systems – closing the industrial

loop over WSN

 Environmental Monitoring & Agriculture: Wild Life Monitoring,

Vineyards, Forest Fire Detection

 Structural Health Monitoring

 Marine monitoring: Ocean life & ecosystem

 Health Care: rehabilitation, prosthetics, chronic conditions management,

emergency response

 Smart Homes – Smart Buildings – Smart Cities: Energy consumption

monitoring and optimization, transportations & traffic management, etc

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 Introduction

The Golden Gate Bridge Case Study (Stanford

Univ. - 2005)

Objectives:
• determine the response of the structure to
both ambient and extreme conditions WSN:
• compare actual performance to design
predictions 64 wireless sensor nodes
• measure ambient structural accelerations Synchronous monitoring of ambient
from wind load
vibrations
• measure strong shaking from a potential 1 KHz rate, ≤10μs jitter, accuracy=30μg,
earthquake
over a 46-hop network
• the installation and the monitoring was
conducted without the disruption of the
bridge's operation

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Introduction

Monitoring Parkinson’s Disease (MIT -

2009)

• The aim is to augment or entirely

replace a human observer and to help
physicians fine-tune medication
dosage

• 12 individuals participated at the study,

performing simple tasks

• More than 80 days of continuous data

collection @ 50Hz sampling rate

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Introduction
• The SmartSantander Case Study (2011):
A city-wide testbed

Main WSN infrastructure with the following objectives

• Environmental Monitoring: 2000 sensing devices for

temperature, CO, noise, light and car presence.
• Outdoor parking area management. 400 parking sensors,
buried under the asphalt
• Mobile Environmental Monitoring: Sensors are installed in
150 public vehicles, including buses, taxis and police cars.
• Traffic Intensity Monitoring: 60 devices @ the main
entrances of Santander for measuring main traffic
parameters (traffic volumes, road occupancy, vehicle speed
or queue length)

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 By Twhair - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/inde
Introduction x.php?curid=36829194

• The Hydrobionets Project (2014):

An industrial process for water
desalination – the need for reducing
energy

WSN – based industrial monitoring of the

existence of unwanted bacteria in the
water & the membranes

WSN protocol integrated protocol stack

for operation in the industrial
environment

Extensive field studies & 24/7 operation

in industrial environment

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The IoT Revolution

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-Ekz2kK7J4

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 The Internet of Things (IoT)
• By the end of 2014, the number of mobile-connected devices
will exceed the number of people on earth, and by 2019
there will be nearly 1.5 mobile devices per capita.
• Mobile video traffic exceeded 50%of total mobile data traffic
for the first time in 2012
• Almost half a billion (497 million) mobile devices and
connections were added in 2014
• Globally, there were nearly 109 million wearable devices in
2014 generating 15 petabytes of monthly traffic.
• Globally, 46% of total mobile data traffic was offloaded onto
the fixed network through Wi-Fi or femtocell in 2014
• Applications
• Smart appliances
• In-home medical sensors
• Smart sensor tags (farm animals)
• Smart cars
• Smart weather umbrellas
• Beacons

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 Enablers of the IoT
• Cheap sensors – Sensor prices have dropped to an average 60 cents from $1.30
in the past 10 years.
• Cheap bandwidth – The cost of bandwidth has also declined precipitously, by a
factor of nearly 40X over the past 10 years.
• Cheap processing – Similarly, processing costs have declined by nearly 60X over
the past 10 years, enabling more devices to be not just connected, but smart
enough to know what to do with all the new data they are generating or
receiving.
• Smartphones – Smartphones are now becoming the personal gateway to the
IoT, serving as a remote control or hub for the connected home, connected car,
or the health and fitness devices consumers are increasingly starting to wear.
• Ubiquitous wireless coverage – With Wi-Fi coverage now ubiquitous, wireless
connectivity is available for free or at a very low cost, given Wi-Fi utilizes
unlicensed spectrum and thus does not require monthly access fees to a carrier.
• Big data – As the IoT will by definition generate voluminous amounts of
unstructured data, the availability of big data analytics is a key enabler.
• IPv6 – Most networking equipment now supports IPv6, the newest version of
the Internet Protocol (IP) standard that is intended to replace IPv4.

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Some history
1st Phase – Stand Alone Computer 2nd Phase – The Web

Data Web Sites

Data
Data
Data
App.

Data

App.
Browser
Data

3rd Phase – The Cloud 4th Phase – Cloud + IoT

Data Data Data

Data
Data App. Data
App. App. App.
App.
App.
Data
Data

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 Introduction
• Market Size & Technological Trend
The global industrial wireless sensor
network market size is estimated to
grow from $401.23 Million in 2013 to
$944.92 Million by 2020.

IDTechX:
The WSN market will grow to $1.8
billion in 2024
“Wireless Sensor Networks will
eventually enable the automatic
monitoring of forest fires, avalanches, By 2016: 24 million wireless-enabled sensing
hurricanes, failure of country wide utility points. Source: On World Survey 2012
equipment, traffic, hospitals and much
more over wide areas, something
previously impossible.”
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 Introduction Memory
/storage
(data acquisition, and
preprocessing, buffers
handling)

• Sensor Node sensors microProcessor transceiver

(transducer, measuring a (connection to the outer-world,
(communication with sensors &
physical phenomenon e.g. e.g. other sensor nodes, or data
transceivers , preprocessing,
heat, light, motion, vibration, collectors --sinks)
buffers handling, etc)
and sound)
• Basic unit in sensor network

• Contains on-board sensors, power unit

processor, memory, (battery based – limited lifetime!)

transceiver, and power

supply

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 Introduction
Sensing Elements
• Sensors: capture a signal corresponding to a physical
phenomenon (process, system, plant)
• Signal conditioning prepare captured signals for
further use (amplification, attenuation, filtering of
unwanted frequencies, etc.)
• Analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) translates analog
signal into digital signal
• Model to translate raw value to measurable unit
Temperature Image Sound Pressure Vibration, Glucose
& Humidity Motion (&biometrics)

And many more….

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 Introduction
Processing Elements

Traditionally: 16-bit archs

• Moving towards higher computational capacity
(32 bit – ARM technologies)
• When programming a sensor node →
programming its μProcessor to:
• access the peripheral devices (transceiver, leds,
Processing & Networking
sensors etc)

• handle, store, modify the acquired information Hardware Abstraction Layer

TRX / PHY
• Direct programming on the microprocessor (low Sensors (MAC)
μProcess
level C / Assembly) OR using Real-time Operating or
Systems Memory
Other (e.g. battery
monitor, GIOs,etc)

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Introduction
Transceivers

• Conventional: low-level PHY functionalities:

frequency and channels, spectrum handling,
modulation, bit rate. Advanced network
functionalities and processing are
implemented on software (i.e.
microprocessor)
• Current Trend: System-on-Chip -> allows
implementation of a sophisticated protocol
stack on the chip (dedicated microprocessor
& memory)
• Either way: it is the element with the highest
power consumption
• Radio Duty Cycling: putting transceiver to
different states:
• Transmit / Receive
• Idle: ready to receive
• Sleep: significant parts of the chip are switched off

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 Introduction
Interaction with the outer world

• Gateway: routes user queries or

commands to appropriate nodes in
a sensor network and sensor data,
at times aggregated and
summarized, to users who have 2004
requested it or are expected to
utilize the information.
2014-…
• Data repository/storage service:
persistent data storage.

• Data analytics & Provision of

services

The Internet of Things

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IoT Meets Big Data

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Introduction
WSN-> The Internet of Things -> BIG DATA

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 Big Data in WSN/IoT
Big Data
• Volume: size of data such as terabytes (TB), petabytes (PB), zettabytes (ZB),
• Variety: types of data from difference sources (sensors, devices, social networks, the web,
mobile phones)
• Velocity: how frequently the data is generated (every millisecond, second, minute, hour, day,
week, month, year.) Processing frequency may also differ from the user requirements.
• Challenges
• High volume processing using low power processing architectures.
• Discovery of real-time data-adaptive Machine learning techniques.
• Design scalable data storages that provide efficient data mining.

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 What to do with all this data
Machine Learning
• Checkers (1995)
• Chess (1997)
• jeopardy (2011)
• Go (2015)
• Poker (2017)

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 Key ML approaches

Support Vector
Machines
Regression Models
K-means
Spectral Clustering

Association rules
Distance learning

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Applications

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 Introduction

Putting things into perspective

Conventional Networks WSN

General purpose design (many applications) Serving a single application or a bouquet of applications

Network Performance and Latency Energy is the primary challenge

Devices and networks operate in controlled / mild Unattended, harsh conditions & hostile environments
environments (or over an appropriate infrastructure)
Easily accessible Physical access is difficult / undesirable

Global knowledge is feasible and centralized management is Localized decisions – no support by central entity
possible

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Introduction
• Self-organization -> Clustering?
• Re-Selection of optimal routes w.r.t to different
• Energy is limited
metrics and environmental changes (and
• Affects the lifetime of the WSN and the quality of application demands)
sensing (analog sensors) • Energy conservative (TX is the most power
• Computation – Communication – Consumption hungry element)
Nexus • Cross-layer design – networking needs to
• Compromises its application objectives couple to sensing purposes
• How to cope with delays and packet losses?
• Recharging Batteries, Energy Harvesting OR Node
• Limited range
Discarding? • How to cope with interference from “stronger”
• Dynamic topologies – even when nodes are networks?
static • How to retain QoS in RF harsh environments?

Energy Networking

• Data are vulnerable (over RF) and critical (e.g. Data • Sensing coverage – how to optimally place the
smart-grid data) Security sensor nodes?
• Data are private (e.g. biometrics, your location)
Manipulation
• Computational complexity & storage capacity
• Computational complexity is poor and are limited
conventional cryptography algorithms • How to cope with noisy and faulty
(@computer networks) will not work measurements?
• WSN nodes are remote and exposed in the • Reduce dummy transmissions – increase the
environment – physical tampering intelligence of the nodes -> Decentralized data
• intrusion detection / node compromise by models (different layers of data abstraction)
attacker, encryption, key establishment and • How to combine heterogeneous, unstructured
distribution, node authentication, and secrecy. data to derive context (e.g. location)
WSN key challenges
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Introduction
• Self-organization -> Clustering?
• Re-Selection of optimal routes w.r.t to different
• Energy is limited
metrics and environmental changes (and
• Affects the lifetime of the WSN and the quality of application demands)
sensing (analog sensors) • Energy conservative (TX is the most power
• Computation – Communication – Consumption hungry element)
Nexus • Cross-layer design – networking needs to
• Compromises its application objectives couple to sensing purposes
• How to cope with delays and packet losses?
• Recharging Batteries, Energy Harvesting OR Node
• Limited range
Discarding? • Hoe to cope with interference from “stronger”
• Dynamic topologies – even when nodes are networks?
static • How to retain QoS in RF harsh environments?

Energy Networking
Programming Paradigms
Middleware Solutions
Testing, Simulation and
emulation on realistic
conditions!

• Data are vulnerable (over RF) and critical (e.g. Data • Sensing coverage – how to optimally place the
smart-grid data) Security sensor nodes?
• Data are private (e.g. biometrics, your location)
Manipulation
• Computational complexity & storage capacity
• Computational complexity is poor and are limited
conventional cryptography algorithms • How to cope with noisy and faulty
(@computer networks) will not work measurements?
• WSN nodes are remote and exposed in the • Reduce dummy transmissions – increase the
environment – physical tampering intelligence of the nodes -> Decentralized data
• intrusion detection / node compromise by models (different layers of data abstraction)
attacker, encryption, key establishment and • How to combine heterogeneous, unstructured
distribution, node authentication, and secrecy. data to derive context (e.g. location)
WSN key challenges
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 In this course we will cover aspects
Introduction related to Energy, Networking and
Data Manipulation
• Self-organization -> Clustering?
• Re-Selection of optimal routes w.r.t to different
• Energy is limited
metrics and environmental changes (and
• Affects the lifetime of the WSN and the quality of application demands)
sensing (analog sensors) • Energy conservative (TX is the most power
• Computation – Communication – Consumption hungry element)
Nexus • Cross-layer design – networking needs to
• Compromises its application objectives couple to sensing purposes
• How to cope with delays and packet losses?
• Recharging Batteries, Energy Harvesting OR Node
• Limited range
Discarding? • Hoe to cope with interference from “stronger”
• Dynamic topologies – even when nodes are networks?
static • How to retain QoS in RF harsh environments?

Energy Networking
Programming Paradigms
Middleware Solutions
Testing, Simulation and
emulation on realistic
conditions!

• Data are vulnerable (over RF) and critical (e.g. Data • Sensing coverage – how to optimally place the
smart-grid data) Security sensor nodes?
• Data are private (e.g. biometrics, your location)
Manipulation
• Computational complexity & storage capacity
• Computational complexity is poor and are limited
conventional cryptography algorithms • How to cope with noisy and faulty
(@computer networks) will not work measurements?
• WSN nodes are remote and exposed in the • Reduce dummy transmissions – increase the
environment – physical tampering intelligence of the nodes -> Decentralized data
• intrusion detection / node compromise by models (different layers of data abstraction)
attacker, encryption, key establishment and • How to combine heterogeneous, unstructured
distribution, node authentication, and secrecy. data to derive context (e.g. location)
WSN Challenges
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References and Material for Reading

"Wireless Sensor Networks: An Information Processing Approach”, F. Zhao, L. Guibas, 2004,

Elsevier / Morgan Kaufmann – Chapter 1
Slide Notes of “Fundamentals of Wireless Sensor Networks: Theory and Practice” ,
Waltenegus Dargie and Christian Poellabauer, 2010 – Chapter 1 and Chapter 2

Golden Gate Bridge project: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~binetude/ggb/

SmartSantander: http://www.smartsantander.eu/

Patel, S. et al. “Monitoring Motor Fluctuations in Patients With Parkinson's Disease Using
Wearable Sensors.” Information Technology in Biomedicine, IEEE Transactions on 13.6 (2009):
864-873

The Hydrobionets project: http://www.hydrobionets.eu/

Pattrick Wetterwald, “Internet Of Things: 10 years later. Facts and Vision”, IEEE WF-IoT, 2015

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Next Lecture
Lecture 1: Introduction to WSN and CS-541 course
Lecture 2: Protocol stacks, and wireless networks prerequisites
Lecture 3: Network standards for Personal and Body-area networks
Lecture 4: Signal processing prerequisites.
Lecture 5: Radio Duty Cycling in WSN
Lecture 6: Routing in WSN
Lecture 7: Deployment aspects in WSN
Lecture 8: Distributed Signal Processing for WSN
Lecture 9: Data models and data acquisition
Lecture 10: Machine Learning for WSN
Lecture 11: Introduction to WSN programming & Hands on Session(s)
Lecture 12: Applications of Machine Learning
Lecture 13: Over-the-air programming for WSN
Lecture 14: Localization and Tracking
Lecture 15:Invited Lecture
Lecture 16: Presentations of projects

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