7369 results about "Wireless sensor networking" patented technology

A method and apparatus for coordinating communication in a wireless sensor network may include a plurality of nodes, such as routers, edge nodes, data accumulators and/or gateways. Time management functions, such as determining an elapsed time, may be controlled based on a detected temperature, e.g., a temperature detected at a node, and/or based on a detected clock skew between two or more clocks in two or more different devices. Accurate time management may allow for devices to more accurately coordinate communication instances, e.g., communication that occurs at periodic wake up times. A cluster head, such as a data accumulator, may be associated with a network after its initial formation and cause nodes in the network to alter their hierarchy in the network, thereby making the cluster headaccumulator a parent to nodes in the network. Nodes having a relatively lower hop count may have a higher battery capacity than nodes having a higher hop count.

Methods and apparatus for global wireless sensor network architecture and protocol for remote supervision, asset control and operational management based on localized clusters of autonomous sensor/supervision/operational sensor nodes capable of ad hoc interconnection with nearby nodes and connection to gateway nodes with increased network functionality. These localized cluster nodes send data to gateway nodes either directly or through multi-hop transactions. The gateway nodes are, in turn, connected to other gateway nodes and operations control centers either through wireless or wired data communications links. Utilizing the Internet for long range interconnectivity, the network is scaleable to a global level. The resulting network is based on an ad hoc mesh topology to allow flexibility in network modification and expansion and is comprised of a tiered structure defined by increasing functionality. A current application for this technology is the remote control and supervision of lighting systems for facilities and municipalities on a local, national and/or global basis from centralized regional operations centers.

A system for measuring and analyzing radio frequency power proximate and within a wireless field device mesh network. A centralized software module (CSWM) collects and analyzes values from one or more wireless devices of the wireless field device mesh network representing received RF power measurements on an assigned RF channel and values representing corresponding times of the received RF power measurements. Each wireless device measures received RF power on the assigned RF channel at times other than during reception of a signal resulting in transmission by the wireless device of either an acknowledgment signal or a non-acknowledgement signal. Values representing the received RF power measurements and the corresponding times of the received RF power measurements are determined from the stored received RF power measurements and corresponding times and then discarded. These values are stored within the wireless device until successfully reported. A network manager coordinates communication between the wireless devices and synchronizes the corresponding times of received RF power measurement throughout the wireless field device mesh network.

An apparatus comprising a power source, one or more sensors, a transceiver, and a memory. The power source may be configured to store energy to power the apparatus. The one or more sensors may be configured to receive captured data from one of a plurality of sources. The transceiver may be configured to send and receive data to and from a wireless network. The processor may be configured to execute computer readable instructions. The memory may be configured to store a set of instructions executable by the processor. The instructions may be configured to (A) evaluate an expected power usage budget calculated using a predictive model of future energy consumption and (B) (i) store the captured data in the memory in a first mode and (ii) transmit the captured data to a remote storage device in a second mode. The first mode or the second mode is selected based on characteristics of the captured data received from the sensors.

A method of self-organizing sensor nodes in a wireless sensor network (WSN); a method of localizing mobile nodes in a WSN; and a method of self-calibrating a WSN are disclosed. The method of self-organizing sensor nodes in a WSN includes configuring sensor nodes to in turn broadcast consecutive messages at a plurality of pre-defined and incrementally increasing power levels; detecting receipt of the broadcasted messages at each of the sensor nodes and notifying a master node as to the identity of each sensor node receiving the broadcasted message and the power level at which it was received to define a detected neighbourhood for each sensor node; determining relative locations of sensor nodes with the detected neighbourhoods; and mapping relative locations of the sensor nodes by the master node based on results of the neighborhood detection and known locations of two anchor nodes.

A heterogeneous wireless network topology suited for low-power, short-range and ubiquitous ad-hoc communication. The network topology integrates different wireless transmission technologies, in particular to a wireless sensor network including different node types and communication technologies. The network is highly heterogeneous and can be operated according to the master-slave principle. The nodes can have different wireless communication means tailored to their individual role in the network and other constraints, thus allowing different communication patterns.

A monitoring system for an aircraft engine includes a plurality of wireless engine sensors that sense engine parameters based on an engine sampling algorithm. The wireless engine sensors receive a new engine sampling algorithm to change the engine parameter sensing and generate engine data based on the new engine sampling algorithm. An engine monitoring module is mounted at the aircraft engine and collects and stores in a memory the engine data and transmits the engine data over a wireless communications signal into the aircraft and receives a new engine sampling algorithm and transmits it to the wireless engine sensors. A wireless LAN is within the aircraft and receives the new engine sampling algorithm from a ground based control center and transmits the new engine sampling algorithm to the engine monitoring module.

A system and method for implementing a wireless sensor network. The system comprises a plurality of motes, each mote having a sensor and a wireless communication system for communicating with neighboring motes; a distributed routing table distributed amongst each of the plurality of motes; and an update system for periodically updating the distributed routing table.

The invention discloses a routing method for the wireless sensor network with efficient energy, which is suitable for the layered sensor network structure. The routing method is composed of initialization, cluster building, adjacent clusters routing and routing maintenance, wherein, an initialization process of the protocol makes a Sink node obtain a topology and network average energy of the sensor network, and each node obtains hop counts from the node to the Sink node; in the stage of the cluster building, a repeated division method is used to divide sensor network clusters, the divided clusters are even, and a leader cluster node is undertaken by nodes with higher residual energy; the adjacent clusters routing uses an ant colony algorithm to determine the probability of using a link to send information according to the link pheromone concentration, and the link pheromone concentration is increased with the information transmission on the link and is reduced with the time going; and the routing maintenance stage is responsible for updating link pheromone concentration, and makes the nodes inside the cluster with higher residual energy undertake the leader cluster in turn. The routing method can reduce the consumption of the network total energy, can balance the consumption of the node energy and can prolong the network life cycle.

Described herein are methods, apparatuses, and systems for secure provisioning of devices for manufacturing and maintenance. A method includes provisioning a sensor device by storing identification data for the sensor device and information used to authenticate the identification data in the sensor device. A method includes storing subassembly data for the sensor device and information used to authenticate the subassembly data in the sensor device in response to the sensor device being received and installed in a subassembly unit. The sensor device is installed in response to validating authenticity of the identification data. A method includes connecting the sensor device to a wireless sensor network in response to validating authenticity of one or more of the identification data and the subassembly data. The sensor device is integrated into a larger unit comprising the wireless sensor network.

Environmental monitoring systems that include base stations and environmental sensor units (ESUs) that communicate in a wireless sensor network. A base station may include environmental sensors and may communicate with a remote server using a wide-area wireless network. The base station may also communicate with an environmental sensor unit using a wireless personal area network. The ESU may include environmental sensors and may communicate with the remote server via the base station. The base station and ESU may be adapted to automatically pair with one another to enable the ESU to communicate via the base station. An ESU may also be adapted to process data regarding environmental conditions by automatically determining a type of environmental sensor from which the data was received and processing the data based on the type. An ESU may also include physical ports by which new sensors can be connected to the ESU.