Wireless Sensor Network and Convergent Technologies

Abstract

Although different technologies have different objectives for different context of applications, they could be integrated or converged to achieve the required objectives. One technology can complement the weakness of another and convergence of technologies will make the system more robust and ideal. The smart environment relies first and foremost on sensory data from the real world. Sensory data comes from multiple sensors of different distributed locations. To meet the functional requirement of the various applications, it will be necessary for sensor systems to leverage and incorporate the advances and strengths in adjacent technologies to offer smart services. In this paper we discuss 3 areas of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) related, convergent technologies (i.e. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Agents, and Grid and how they can work together with WSN. In addition, the challenges found in convergence and the future trends beyond convergence are also discussed.