Why can’t our refrigerator fire off an urgent email when the milk has gone lumpy? And the lavatory paper dispensers warn us it’s empty – before we take a seat? And when will our microwaves run BitTorrent? EUREKA, the eu R&D network, knows how badly you crave networked objects, and as opposed to mock you, it’s moving to aid. As a consequence, it has developed small, inexpensive, battery-powered sensors capable of link everything from consumer electronics to environmental monitors to factory robots – creating the much-anticipated “Internet of items.” But unlike the over-hyped RFID , it’s technology you’d actually use. Rather than knowing whether your keys are indeed at the RFID reader, the network could gently remind you that you simply left them to your car, that is now 100 miles away with another individual on the wheel, but, luckily for you, low on gas. Gaze into the so-called way forward for things with EUREKA’s press release, conveniently embedded after the jump.
Low-Cost Wireless Sensor Networks Open New Horizons for the net of ThingsScienceDaily (Apr. 12, 2011) – The ESNA project enables high effective networking in line with cheap wireless sensors in a variety of business applications — from more well-off and effort-efficient environmental controls to precision monitoring of agricultural resources.
The EUREKA ITEA software Cluster ESNA project has developed a versatile framework for business-oriented wireless-sensor network applications using a normal architecture to facilitate communications between every type of smart device — from domestic appliances and environmental controls in the house to the most recent process control equipment in factories. ESNA offers an imposing balance between advanced technological innovation and a business-oriented way to defining applications. a sequence of implementations that were demonstrated within the EUREKA project have already ended in real applications including precision agriculture, energy monitoring and management in buildings, and industrial process control.
Further and further everyday appliances — from fridges and washing machines, through heating and ventilation controls, to trendy multimedia systems — are increasingly intelligent. As home networking becomes the norm, linking these types of devices may be a key driver of our future world, providing a high level of control over our everyday environment for our comfort and safety. And via the ubiquity of the net, such control and interactivity should be would becould very well be extended across our society in the course of the so-called ‘Internet of items’ from factory production to fashionable agriculture.
Interconnecting low-cost devices
Key to this has been the construction of wireless networks that enable the interconnection of every type of sensors using radio communications. The matchbox-sized devices might be incorporated into almost any device — and at derisorily inexpensive. While manufacture of such devices has inevitably moved to Asia, using these components in wireless sensor networks has been the topic of immense interest in Europe
Battery power offers high flexibility as no power cabling is wanted. And devices are multifunctional — nodes could be equipped with various sensor capabilities, consisting of temperature, humidity, movement, radiation, gases and light-weight, opening up a broad spectrum of applications. Dynamic network establishment adds to robustness — if one node fails, the network automatically rearranges itself to continue operation.
“We discussed wireless sensor network applications at an ITEA brokerage event in Barcelona in 2005,” explains project leader Olle Olsson of the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS). The topic attracted interest from partners with complementary interests in a large mixture of technologies, and from partners with more market-oriented focus, eager to target specific markets and bridge the distance between technology and actual use.
“We saw the best way EUREKA operated was good, since it enabled the matching of product and alertness-oriented technology development within the same project. The outcome was a project that combined technology ‘geeks’ and organisations keen to provide technologies for specific markets. We also had end users keen on using rather then selling technologies.”
ESNA had two objectives: developing a robust and multifunctional basic software platform supporting very flexible application needs and demonstrating using this platform to satisfy the desires of specific market areas with relevant application frameworks.
Business-oriented applications
The EUREKA project enabled the advance of commercial-oriented wireless sensor network applications using standard open-source architecture, technology and alertness-development guidelines, and proof-of-concept implementations. The ESNA architecture supports off-the-shelf sensor network nodes and guidelines cover network dimensioning and the kind of nodes to apply for various application domains.
“We did develop some really new things,” says Olsson. “We worked on a standards-compliant generic platform in accordance with the emerging IPV6 Internet standard, developing the area’s smallest implementation of IPV6 with regards to lines of code.” ESNA also made a specific effort to minimize energy use. The outcome was new software-controlled technology enabling devices to function so long as possible on one set of batteries.
“At the basic software side, we consolidated the open-source Contiki software,” says Olsson. “Here’s an open source, portable operating system for wireless sensor networks. It’s designed for microcontrollers with small amounts of memory.”
At the applications side, ESNA developed methods for interoperation with other IP environments to make sure wireless sensor networks weren’t separate, stand-alone islands but rather component to enterprise-wide IT environment. “This involved supporting industrial standards in various application areas. We’ve solutions which can be innovative relating to integrating other technologies and systems.”
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