Hands-On Approach to Teaching Wireless Sensor Networks at the Undergraduate Level

摘要

Teaching wireless sensor networks (WSNs) at the undergrad-uate level is both challenging and rewarding. WSNs include low-level programming and debugging, power-aware opera-tions, novel communication paradigms and interdisciplinary applications in real world environments. These character-istics enable the students to learn how to cope with com-plete systems, starting with hardware design and low-level programming throughout applications and data processing. They learn to recognize complex software-hardware cross-dependencies and to manage them successfully.rnIn this paper we share our experience from a new course on "Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks" at the un-dergraduate level. The most important characteristic of the course is its hands-on approach. We believe this is crucial for fully understanding the complex nature of WSNs and their interdependencies with the environment in which they operate. The students were able to build a solid set of skills and expertise in WSNs by designing and implementing their own small-size real-world WSN deployment.