Novel WSN Hardware for Long Range Low Power Monitoring

Abstract

Environmental monitoring applications often require 24/7 operation in harsh, low resource (e.g. power and communication) environments over a large scale area with ad-hoc deployment of sensors. Data processing at the sensor is required to minimize communication overhead. Such an application scenario presents opportunities for research in wireless sensor networks (WSN)s that are distinct from existing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions. We present a novel modular, highly flexible, hardware solution with a core feature of a System on a Chip (SoC) with add-ons such as memories, interfaces, and different transmission input/output I/O modalities. The system can manage, process, and transmit data directly within an ad-hoc self healing, self forming, mesh network over long distance (19 km between nodes in the current implementation) or as a stand-alone system. Hardware has been produced and the system has been validated in real-world deployments.