Efficient Data Gathering from Passive Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

This study suggests using a user-initiated data gathering from power-limited and even passive wireless sensor networks (WSNs), that either power limitation or poor cellular coverage prevents them from communicating directly with wireless networks. While previous studies focused on WSNs that continuously transmit their data, the focus of this study is on passive WSNs. The key idea is that instead of receiving the data transmitted by the WSN, an external device (a reader), such as an unnamed aerial vehicle (UAV), or a smartphone is used to read the data stored in the sensor nodes, and then to deliver it to the cloud, in which it is stored and processed. The focus of this study is on the rate at which the passive sensor nodes should be polled. That is, to find the minimal monitoring rate that still guarantees accurate and reliable data collection.The proposed scheme enables us to deploy wireless sensor networks over a large geographic area (e.g., for agricultural applications), in which the cellular coverage is very poor if any. Furthermore, the usage of initiated data collection can enable the deployment of passive WSNs. Thus, can significantly reduce both the operational cost, as well as the deployment cost, of the WSN.