Sensor Network Technology

Jan 18-20, 2005

Course Description and Objective
A sensor network is a number of sensors such as chemical, biological or solar sensors that are networked together in a certain fashion to strengthen the power of sensing. A sensor network can be wired or wireless depending on where and how the sensors are used. The applications of sensor network can be military or civilian. In military, in the battlefield of the future for instance, a network of sensors enables soldiers to see around corners and to sense the threat of chemical and biological weapons long before they get close enough to cause harm. Sensor networks can also be put to legions of civilian uses, from environmental monitoring, traffic control, and to providing heath care monitoring for the elderly while allowing them more freedom to move about.

This course introduces fundamental concepts of sensor networks focusing on architectures, protocols, hardware aspects, and other related issues such as scalability, fault-tolerance, and security. The basic concept is to deploy a large number of low-cost, and self-powered sensor nodes that acquire and process data, and alert users upon an event to take necessary action. The entire region under sensing is normally partitioned into equally loaded clusters of sensor nodes. Nodes are, in another word, inserted in the vicinity of a certain pre-defined region forming a cluster. In the sensor network, a base-station monitors and controls cluster networks and chooses a cluster head (gateway) for each cluster through which the cluster data is collectively routed to the base-station. Sensor networks are constructed with a stack of five layer protocol: physical layer, data link layer and MAC sub-layer, network layer, transport layer, and application layer. Sensor nodes normally use the combination of a tiny operating system and a tiny database

Who should attend?
This course provides a broad introduction to the new field of sensor network technology. The course is intended for engineers and managers in system R&D and especially for experts in network security who seek understanding of this new technology for innovation of more powerful security systems

Prerequisites
Basic logic circuits and wireless communications.

Course Materials
Course Binder: with lecture notes and other related materials.

Instructor
Professor Nader F. Mir

Course Highlights
Day 1
• Overview of sensor networks
• Examples of sensor networks
     -- Civilian
     -- Military
• Characteristics of sensor networks
• Network architecture
• Hardware design of sensor nodes
• Sensing unit
• Design of tiny central Processing Unit.
• Storage unit,
• Power unit
• Wireless transceiver
     -- RFID technology
• Location finding system.
• Tiny central memory

Day 2
• Routing Protocol
     •• Physical Layer
          ---- Frequency selection, types of wireless media
          ---- Carrier frequency generation.
          ---- Signal detection.
     •• Data Link Layer
          ---- Multiplexing of data streams.
          ---- Data frame detection.
          ---- Medium access.
          ---- Error control.
          ---- Medium Access Control
     •• Network Layer
          ---- Routing base of energy.
          ---- Local base station
     •• Clustering Algorithms

Day 3
• Efficient energy aware routing scheme desired
• Re-clustering algorithm for the network to change cluster heads
• Local base-station management
• Data Aggregation Algorithms
• Fault Tolerance
• Scalability
• Production Cost
• Energy saving.
     -- Power Saving modes of Operation
     -- Efficient use of battery:
• Security
     -- Techniques to prevent intrusion of data when moving.


Location
College of Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering.

Fee - $995