Meeting the challenges for wireless sensor network deployment in buildings

摘要

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in buildings are faced with transmission issues, much more severe than those of outdoor applications. Next to the transmission effective range, battery lifetime is also of a high importance, as it can significantly affect network performance and maintenance requirements. In this paper we present an architectural concept, in fact a dynamic routing protocol, for the setup of a building WSN. Three key goals have underpinned the protocol design; ability to cost efficiently address transmission distance within buildings, acceptable battery longevity, typically up to a year, and no data loss. Experimental data have been collected over a period of several months and have demonstrated the much enhanced performance of the network, when compared to the performance before the protocol implementation.