• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.341-351
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• 2008

Communication in wireless sensor networks comprising a plurality of sensor nodes located in an ad hoc environment is unidirectional in that data gathered by sensor nodes are transmitted to a sink node and not vice versa. In those networks, it is not possible for a server or a gateway to send commands to the sensor nodes to determine whether some previously received data are valid when the data indicate unusual conditions, which makes it difficult to make appropriate reactions to the unusual situations. This paper proposes and implements a TDMA-based sensor network communication protocol named BiWSLP(Bidirectional Wireless Sensor Line Protocol) supporting bidirectional communication capability. The BiWSLP is an extension of the WSLP, a unidirectional sensor network communication protocol based on the TDMA protocol. To test the feasibility of the proposed BiWSLP, we construct a virtual bridge management system capable of sending commands to sensor nodes as well as collecting data from the sensor nodes. Based on the test results of the virtual bridge management system, we show the applicability and advantages of the BiWSLP in terms of energy efficiency and bidirectional communication capability.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.867-875
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• 2009

A wireless sensor network inherently comprises a plurality of sensor nodes widely deployed for sensing environmental information. To add new functions or to correct some faulty functions of an existing wireless sensor network, the firmware for each sensor node needs to be updated. Firmware update would be quite troublesome if it requires the gathering, reprogramming, and redeploy of all of already deployed sensor nodes. Over-the-air programming (OTA) facilitates the firmware update process, thereby allowing convenient maintenance of an already-deployed sensor network. This paper proposes and implements a remote firmware update mechanism for a TDMA-based wireless sensor network, in which the firmware for sensor nodes constituting the TDMA-based sensor network can be easily updated and the update process can be conveniently monitored from a remote site. We verify the validity of the proposed firmware update method via experiments and introduce three wireless sensor networks installed in outdoor sites in which the proposed firmware update mechanism has been exploited.

• IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications
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• v.6 no.6
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• pp.369-376
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• 2011

Since wireless sensor networks generally have the capability of network recovery, malfunction of a few sensor nodes in a sensor network does not cause a crucial problem paralyzing the sensor network. The malfunction of the sink node, however, is critical. If the sink node of a sensor network stops working, the data collected by sensor nodes cannot be delivered to the gateway because no other sensor nodes can take the place of the sink node. This paper proposes a TDMA-based wireless sensor network equipped with dual sink nodes, with a view to preventing data loss in the case of malfunction of a sink node. A secondary sink node, which synchronizes with a primary sink node and receives data from other sensor nodes in normal situations, takes the role of the primary sink node in the case of malfunction of the primary sink, thereby eliminating the possibility of data loss. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is demonstrated through experiments.