Zigbee is an IEEE 802.15.4-based specification for a suite of high-level communication protocols used to create personal area networks with small, low-power digital radios, such as for home automation, medical device data collection, and other low-power low-bandwidth needs, designed for small scale projects which need wireless connection. Hence, Zigbee is a low-power, low data rate, and close proximity wireless ad hoc network.
Wireless sensor network (WSN) refers to a group of spatially dispersed and dedicated sensors for monitoring and recording the physical conditions of the environment and organizing the collected data at a central location. WSNs measure environmental conditions like temperature, sound, pollution levels, humidity, wind, and so on.
Energy harvesting is the process by which energy is derived from external sources, captured, and stored for small, wireless autonomous devices, like those used in wearable electronics and wireless sensor networks.
Machine to machine refers to direct communication between devices using any communications channel, including wired and wireless. Machine to machine communication can include industrial instrumentation, enabling a sensor or meter to communicate the data it records to application software that can use it. Such communication was originally accomplished by having a remote network of machines relay information back to a central hub for analysis, which would then be rerouted into a system like a personal computer.
A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or MANET is a decentralised type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points in managed (infrastructure) wireless networks. Instead, each node participates in routing by forwarding data for other nodes, so the determination of which nodes forward data is made dynamically on the basis of network connectivity and the routing algorithm in use.
In the Windows operating system, ad-hoc is a communication mode (setting) that allows computers to directly communicate with each other without a router.
Wireless mobile ad hoc networks are self-configuring, dynamic networks in which nodes are free to move. Wireless networks lack the complexities of infrastructure setup and administration, enabling devices to create and join networks "on the fly" – anywhere, anytime.
Low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy ("LEACH") is a TDMA-based MAC protocol which is integrated with clustering and a simple routing protocol in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The goal of LEACH is to lower the energy consumption required to create and maintain clusters in order to improve the life time of a wireless sensor network.
A sensor node, also known as a mote, is a node in a sensor network that is capable of performing some processing, gathering sensory information and communicating with other connected nodes in the network. A mote is a node but a node is not always a mote.
In radio, Cooperative multiple-input multiple-output is an advanced technology that can effectively exploit the spatial domain of mobile fading channels to bring significant performance improvements to wireless communication systems. It is also called Network MIMO, Distributed MIMO, Virtual MIMO, and Virtual Antenna Arrays.
An indoor positioning system (IPS) is a system used to locate objects or people inside a building using lights, radio waves, magnetic fields, acoustic signals, or other sensory information. There are several commercial systems on the market, but there is no standard for an IPS system.
A sensor grid integrates wireless sensor networks with grid computing concepts to enable real-time sensor data collection and the sharing of computational and storage resources for sensor data processing and management. It is an enabling technology for building large-scale infrastructures, integrating heterogeneous sensor, data and computational resources deployed over a wide area, to undertake complicated surveillance tasks such as environmental monitoring.
Virtual sensor networks (VSNs) is an emerging form of collaborative wireless sensor networks. In contrast to early wireless sensor networks that were dedicated to a specific application, VSNs enable multi-purpose, collaborative, and resource efficient WSNs. The key idea difference of VSNs is the collaboration and resource sharing. By doing so nodes achieve application objectives in a more resource efficient way. These networks may further involve dynamically varying subset of sensor nodes and/or users .
A VSN can be formed by providing logical connectivity among collaborative sensors. Nodes can be grouped into different VSNs based on the phenomenon they track or the task they perform. VSNs are expected to provide the protocol support for formation, usage, adaptation, and maintenance of subset of sensors collaborating on a specific task(s). Even the nodes that do not sense the particular event/phenomenon could be part of a VSN as far as they are willing to allow sensing nodes to communicate through them. Thus, VSNs make use of intermediate nodes, networks, or other VSNs to efficiently deliver messages across members of a VSN.
A mobile ad hoc network (MANET), also known as wireless ad hoc network or ad hoc wireless network, is a continuously self-configuring, infrastructure-less network of mobile devices connected wirelessly.
OCARI is a low-rate wireless personal area networks (LR-WPAN) communication protocol that derives from the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. It was developed by the following consortium during the OCARI project that is funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR):
Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) is the combination of cloud computing, mobile computing and wireless networks to bring rich computational resources to mobile users, network operators, as well as cloud computing providers. The ultimate goal of MCC is to enable execution of rich mobile applications on a plethora of mobile devices, with a rich user experience. MCC provides business opportunities for mobile network operators as well as cloud providers. More comprehensively, MCC can be defined as "a rich mobile computing technology that leverages unified elastic resources of varied clouds and network technologies toward unrestricted functionality, storage, and mobility to serve a multitude of mobile devices anywhere, anytime through the channel of Ethernet or Internet regardless of heterogeneous environments and platforms based on the pay-as-you-use principle."
A body area network (BAN), also referred to as a wireless body area network (WBAN) or a body sensor network (BSN) or a medical body area network (MBAN), is a wireless network of wearable computing devices. BAN devices may be embedded inside the body, implants, may be surface-mounted on the body in a fixed position Wearable technology or may be accompanied devices which humans can carry in different positions, in clothes pockets, by hand or in various bags. Whilst there is a trend towards the miniaturization of devices, in particular, networks consisting of several miniaturized body sensor units (BSUs) together with a single body central unit (BCU). Larger decimeter sized smart devices, accompanied devices, still play an important role in terms of acting as a data hub, data gateway and providing a user interface to view and manage BAN applications, in-situ. The development of WBAN technology started around 1995 around the idea of using wireless personal area network (WPAN) technologies to implement communications on, near, and around the human body. About six years later, the term "BAN" came to refer to systems where communication is entirely within, on, and in the immediate proximity of a human body. A WBAN system can use WPAN wireless technologies as gateways to reach longer ranges. Through gateway devices, it is possible to connect the wearable devices on the human body to the internet. This way, medical professionals can access patient data online using the internet independent of the patient location.
Guowang Miao is an associate professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, working on design and optimization of wireless communications and networking and the author of Fundamentals of Mobile Data Networks and Energy and Spectrum Efficient Wireless Network Design.
A Wireless powerline sensor hangs from an overhead power line and sends measurements to a data collection system. Because the sensor does not contact anything but a single live conductor, no high-voltage isolation is needed. The sensor, installed simply by clamping it around a conductor, powers itself from energy scavenged from electrical or magnetic fields surrounding the conductor being measured. Overhead power line monitoring helps distribution system operators provide reliable service at optimized cost.
Ramesh Govindan is an Indian-American professor of computer science. He is the Northrop Grumman Chair in Engineering and Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California.
