Wireless Sensor Networks Blog

Emulation environment for Sun SPOT SDK

From Blog SPOT Blog:

The Beta for a Software-only version of the Sun SPOT SDK is now available. What this means is that you don’t have to buy the Development Kit to get in on the fun. You can get the SDK and begin playing with the SDK, writing code, and running it on the Sun SPOT Emulator all without hardware! And for free!!!

So, how to participate? Send an email to davidgs (at) sun (dot) com. Please put “SDK Beta” in the Subject: line so that he can attempt to manage the (anticipated) flood more easily.

You will then be sent a link for the Truth or Consequences Java WebStart page from where you can start the install. You will have to be able to run Java WebStart applications, of course.

Existing Sun SPOT users are not excluded from this. If you want to play with the new version of SPOT Manager, just sign up!

Nokia Research Center Provides a WSN Postdoc Position

Position description:
1. Responsible for research and innovation in wireless sensor networks and mobile Internet services
2. Responsible for algorithm design and prototyping multimedia sensor network systems
3. Contribution to publications and IPRs

Requirement:
1. Ph.D degree holder in computer science, electric engineering, or related area
2. Familiar with wireless sensor networks and smart space applications
3. Familiar with multimedia processing, esp. image processing
4. Knowledge about Web 2.0 and vertical search is a plus
5. Good verbal, writing, presentation and communication skills in English
6. High responsibility, dedication and team spirit

Contact: canfeng-david.chen@nokia.com

TinyOS 2.0 Support for Crossbow's IRIS Mote Platform

Earlier this month, Crossbow announced the availability of the TinyOS 2.0 Operating System for Crossbow’s advanced IRIS Motes. TinyOS 2.0 is the latest major release of the popular open source embedded operating system. This release now enables developers to use the latest generation TinyOS software on the latest generation Sensor Network hardware.

TinyOS is an open-source operating system designed for wireless embedded sensor networks. It features a component-based architecture which enables rapid innovation and implementation while minimizing code size as required by the severe memory constraints inherent in sensor networks. The TinyOS component library includes network protocols, distributed services, sensor drivers, and data acquisition tools. The event-driven execution model enables fine-grained power management yet allows the scheduling flexibility made necessary by the unpredictable nature of wireless communication and physical world interfaces.

More info here.

WSN and National Science Foundation CAREER Award

Wenjing Lou, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has received a five-year, $450,000 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. The award is the NSF’s most prestigious for young faculty members.

Lou’s research focuses on wireless networks and their security. The CAREER Award will enable her to conduct a comprehensive study of a relatively new concept in wireless networking, one that takes better advantage of the broadcast nature of wireless communications. The aim of the research is to find ways to increase the efficiency, throughput, and reliability of wireless networks and to develop computer models and protocols that will enable designers to create more effective wireless technology.

More info here.

Wireless sensors the Lego way

Todd Winkler, a professor at Brown University in Rhode Island, and Mikael Fernstrom, a lecturer at the University of Limerick in Ireland, have choreographed performance pieces in which the dancers are rigged up with small wireless sensors that can alter the music and the images on screens. When the dancers move, changes occur in response. In other words, it’s an arty version of the Wii.

It’s one of the more novel applications for a Lego-like sensor platform developed by Brendan O’Flynn, who works in the Ambient Electronic Systems Integration group at the Tyndall National Institute here. The sensors are similar to wireless motes from companies like Dust Networks and Crossbow Technology. The difference lies in the ability to mix and match the components and capabilities of any given sensor, he says.

More info here.

Mimos, Oracle team up on sensor grid for agriculture industry

Mimos Bhd and Oracle Corporation Malaysia are collaborating to develop and deploy a sensor grid pilot project for the agriculture industry under KnowledgeGRID Malaysia, a Mimos initiative. The sensor-based grid technology is currently in the initial testing phase and is scheduled to run its beta testing by the second quarter of this year.

The project aimed to develop applications for the preventive and proactive management in agriculture, including real-time crop monitoring, analysis, and proactive and preventive care solutions for crops. Crop data gathered using Mimos’ wireless precision sensors would be used to measure the soil nutrients in a certain plot of land. The data would be stored using Oracle’s database technology. Analysis of the data could then be used to measure the exact amount of fertiliser needed, the types of crops suitable for certain plots of land and so forth.

More info here.

5 PhD positions in Electrical Engineering, KTH Sweden

The Communication Theory Lab is conducting research and education in the general area of digital communications and in wireless communications in particular. We work both with basic research and with more applied problems, often in collaboration with industry. More information about us is available on the Internet: www.commth.ee.kth.se.

In particular the following research areas are relevant to the position: Cognitive radio, spectrum sensing and dynamic radio resource allocation, Cooperative coding and transmission techniques in wireless sensor networks, Wireless communications in automatic control, Information theory for wireless communications.

More info here.

Big Brother bird watching boosts ecology

A wireless surveillance network will be used to monitor the nesting and mating rituals of a remote North Atlantic seabird colony, providing scientists with unprecedented access to their behaviour and ecology.

Researchers from Oxford University and Microsoft Research in the UK, and from the Free University of Berlin, Germany, developed the network to monitor more than 100,000 Manx shearwater birds that breed during the summer on Skomer Island, off the west coast of Wales in the North Atlantic.

Pairs of shearwaters raise their chicks inside metre-long burrows, visiting them during the night, sometimes after fishing trips that can last several days.

More info here.

Skidaway Institute scientists help develop Ossabaw Island as a living laboratory

The dream to turn Ossabaw Island into a living laboratory accessible to anyone with a computer is a step closer to reality. Skidaway Institute of Oceanography and the Ossabaw Island Foundation have received $200,000 in grants from the Georgia Power Corporation and the Georgia Research Alliance to build a network of sensors on the remote coastal Georgia barrier island. The goal is to allow educators, students and scientists to study the island and monitor changes in the environment from off-island locations.

“Based on a number of workshops with state scientists and other stakeholders, we initiated the idea to establish an observing system on the island so people could have access to the island, not just by going over by boat, but also remotely through sensors and computer technology,” said Herb Windom, a Skidaway Institute scientist and one of the originators of the plan.

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