‫الجامعة السعودية االلكترونية‬

‫الجامعة السعودية االلكترونية‬

‫‪26/12/2021‬‬
 College of Computing and Informatics
Bachelor of Science in Information Technology
Program

IT484: Wireless Sensor Networks

 IT484: Wireless Sensor Networks

Module 2

Wireless Sensor Network Applications:

Overview and Case Studies
Contents

1. Target detection and tracking using WSNs

2. Contour and edge detection using WSNs
3. Types of applications
Weekly Learning Outcomes

1. Explain target detection and tracking.

2. Discuss contour and edge detection.
3. Discuss the applications of WSNs.
 References

Chapter 3

Principles of Wireless Sensor Networks, M. Obaidat and

S. Misra, Cambridge University Press, 2014.

(ISBN: 978-0-521-19247-7)
Introduction

• Increased applications of WSNs over the recent years ->

civilian and military sectors
• Increasing applications of wireless sensor networks (WSNs)
have motivated the research as well as development
communities
• Most WSNs are built for delay-tolerant and low-bandwidth
applications => most research efforts focus on this latter
paradigm, which is often called terrestrial sensor networks.
• Network lifetime optimizations is the key challenge in any
WSN application.
• A WSN structure includes a gateway that provides
connectivity with the wired network.
Introduction
• In almost all the applications, WSNs are used to monitor
physical processes or quantities.
 Can be deployed for measuring the temperature, air pressure,
chemical reactions, movement of objects, vitals of the body, etc.
 This can help recover some important information of the system
boundaries that are often referred to as edges.
 The recognition of a boundary is essential in order to keep track of
the edge of a physical development.
 The problem of locating the boundary is the first step for resolving
the edge detection.
 In digital processing, various methods exist for identifying the edge
but they are not easy to implement in WSNs as the sensor nodes
are not uniformly spaced and because of limited computational
power and memory
Target detection and tracking
• Application of WSNs to intrusion detection, sorting and
target tracking have relatively high importance in computer
and communication systems
• Generally, target detection and tracking is a well recognized
discipline.
• A number of solutions in the literature exist which make use
of either domain-specific sensors or simple inexpensive tools
and techniques
• Latter approaches
 Digital are attractive for cases where target
signal processing and synchronized decision making,
detection andsensing,
 Multi-modal tracking need scale appropriately.
• Tracking with inexpensive
 High-frequency WSN
sampling and systems
data synthesishas certain
challenges such as:
Target detection and tracking
• Among the main applications of WSNs are:
 Intrusion detection
 Target detection
 Classification
 Tracking
 Localizing

• Recent developments in the efficiency of sensing,

computing, and communications technology have made it
possible to use a group of sensors inside a sensor node
(sensor network processor)
Target detection and tracking
• Low cost of sensor nodes have made their deployment
possible in disperse geographic area making such devices as
capable contenders for tackling distributed detection,
categorization and tracking problems
• Different type of centralized and distributed techniques have
been developed
 Based to address
on high message the mentioned
complexity, or be high problems which
computational
can be:fusion-based or decision fusion-based
 Data
Target detection and tracking
• Classification problem: In classification, the target has to be
identified as vehicles, soldiers, trees, and animals.
• Classification depend on on approximation where the
relevant parameters of the sensed signal are estimated i.e.
power density, period, duration, amplitude, phase, and
bandwidth.
• Main performance
a. Probability measures
of correct of the
decision i.e. classification
to correctly process
identifying the i-th
are:class
b. Probability of error i.e. incorrectly identifying the i-th class as the j-
th class.
Target detection and tracking
• In tracking, the target position is tracked as it moves in the
area covered by the WSN.
• For a successful tracking process, the estimates of the
target’s primary point of entry and recent position must be
within acceptable detection latency.
• Some key factor that can affect the design and development
of a WSN for target detection are:
a. Energy
b. Dependability
c. Complexity
Target detection and tracking

1. Energy:
 Nodes in a WSN employ either stored energy-based batteries or
harvested-based energy solar cells.
 The rate at which energy is consumed is limited either by the node’s
required lifetime for stored energy or by the mean rate of energy
gathered using harvesting.
 Four
1. majorthe
Sensing operational
environmentmodes in which nodes use energy include:
2. Performing computation
3. Saving data
4. Communicating with peripherals, other nodes and interfaces.

 Each of these operations require specific amount of energy

depending on the effective work that is to be done.
Target detection and tracking

2. Dependability:
 The instability of WSNs seriously impact the system design for
classification and tracking, especially when choosing feature that
provides the basis of classification
 Two main techniques while working on feature selection:
 Centralized
 Distributed

3. Complexity:
 Complexity is associated with each operation performed by a sensor
node i.e., detection, estimation, classification, tracking,
synchronization, and routing perform the sensing, computing,
storage, and communications operations
 Therefore, the designer should concentrate on optimizing the time,
space, and message complexity of the algorithms and protocols
Target detection and tracking
• Recognition of target perturbations to environment
(phenomenology):
Phenomenology is the study of the basic nature of things.
 The aim is to find a set of characteristics with similar significance-
level for objects in the same classes and extremely different for
objects in dissimilar classes.
 Features
1. are identified as belonging to one of the six main energy
Electrical
domains:
2. Mechanical
3. Magnetic
4. Optical
5. Thermal
6. Chemical

 Noting that the sensors may possibly detect various facets of the
Target detection and tracking
• Recognition of target perturbations to environment
(phenomenology):
Example:
• An automobile may disturb the surroundings electrically, magnetically,
thermally, optically, seismically, acoustically, and chemically.
• Generally, automobiles have a thermal signature consisting of hotspots like
the engine area.
• In addition, automobiles have evident seismic and acoustic signatures.
• Automobiles generate carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide as a side effect
of burning fuel.
• They also absorb, reflect, diffract, and scatter electromagnetic, optical,
ultrasonic, and acoustic signals
Target detection and tracking
• Sensing selection
 Decide the correct set of sensors for the system under design so as
the solution is cost-effective and the system lifetime is maximized.
 Sensors are used to monitor variety of physical quantities e.g.,
electrical or optical signature and the output of sensor is an
estimate that lacks precision
 •There are
Active two main
sensors: typesa of
Can gauge sensors:
target’s existence or velocity by how the
target changes, or reflects a signal sent by the sensor
• Passive sensors: To identify and gauge various analogs of a target such as
its acoustic, magnetic, or thermal mark.
Target detection and tracking
• Sensing selection
 Together, the specification of the target and tracking, its design
concerns, target phenomenology, and sensing mode and domain are
used to select an appropriate sensor.
 The guidelines to be considered include the following:
1. No need for a special hardware.
2. The sensor can operate regardless of its orientation.
3. The signal processing schemes needed for related signal detection and
parameter estimation are realistic given the limitations of the situation.
4. The sensors are properly picked out and can be found by using off-the-
shelf commercial sources.
5. Co-location of sensors will not create interference or crosstalk.
Contour and edge
detection
• Technological advancement in WSNs have led to new
applications such as weather monitoring, smart homes and
cities, health care applications, military applications and
infrastructure protection.
• •Problem
Becauseassociated with emerging
of limited spectrum, WSN applications
high communication cost, andislimited
data
aggregation
processor power in WSNs, data aggregation from sensors pose a
challenge
1. The first scheme uses distributed data compression to reduce the size
• Two maintoschemes
of data are used to prevent from data
be transmitted.
aggregation
2. problem:
The second scheme is distributed data fusion, which pre-handles the
gathered data in order to obtain synthesis results for broadcasting.
Contour and edge detection
• Applications like edge detection produce only a binary result
of 1 or 0 (indicating ) based on running the algorithm on
noisy data.
• For some real-world applications, the fundamental physical
events are characterized by a range of values (not binary
values)
• When applying edge detection, we digitize measured values
while some aspects of the monitored event vanish because
of the quantization
• Contour lines offer additional information on the event being
observed in terms of spatial dispersal and a processed set of
values of collected data
• Contour line removal has applications in the environment
Contour and edge
detection
• Liao et al. devised a distributed algorithm for contour line
extraction with wireless sensor networks [10].
• The scheme consists of three main steps:
1. Consecutive extremum search: The gradient is approximated
and used to find the extremum (either the maxima or the minima)
point of the uni-modal field which is referred to as the reference
point of the sensor field.
2. Sensor clustering and contour point finding: Depending on the
location of the extremum, sensors are grouped into a number of
regions and clusters according to their relative location w. r. t. the
reference point. Next, contour points using collected data samples in
each cluster are determined.
3. Contour line creation: The information of contour points is shared
with the class leaders (heads) and then to the base station for the
Types of applications
• Environmental applications:
 Wireless sensor networks can be used effectively to monitor the
environment
 Sensors are deployed to monitor different environmental factors and
conditions
1. Sensors can be deployed to observe animals or plants in the wild and monitor
 Under
wildthis application
habitats as well ascategory, we canfactors
the environmental identify the following
of these habitats. cases:
2. Water or air quality control: WSNs are used to monitor water or air quality by
deploying sensors on the ground or under water.
3. Disaster monitoring: Sensors can be deployed in the forests to detect fires or
in rivers to detect floods. In addition, seismic sensors can be deployed inside
a building to find out path and degree of earthquakes and offer an estimation
of the safety of building
Types of applications
• Health care applications:
 WSNs can be employed to observe and trace patients and senior
citizens for health care reasons
 Possess a great potential to reduce the overall cost of health care
 Sensors can be installed in patients’ homes to monitor their
behavior or movement; vital signs of patients along with GPS
coordinates can be monitored.
 Achieved by using wearable sensors that can be incorporated into
wireless body area networks (WBANs) for real-time monitoring
Types of applications
• Manufacturing process control:
 Sensors can be used to monitor the manufacturing processes.
 Example: small sensors can be set into the regions of specific
machines and devices that are unattainable to humans in order to
monitor the condition of a machine and send warning signal in case
of any failure.
 WSNs can help decrease the cost of maintenance in factories, as
well as enhance the life of equipment and even save human lives.
Types of applications
• Intelligent and smart home:
 WSNs are used to provide comfortable and smart living
environments e.g., sensors can be installed in homes and connected
to make an independent home network
 An intelligent refrigerator linked up to a smart microwave oven or
stove can arrange a menu based on the stock of refrigerator and
send related cooking factors to smart stove or microwave, which in
turn can set the required temperature for cooking
 Utility companies use WSNs to read gas, water, and electricity
meters remotely without the need to physically visit homes to read
the meters.
Types of applications
• Agriculture:
 WSNs are being used more and more in the agricultural industry.
 Gravityfed water systems can be observed via pressure transmitters
in order to check water tank levels.
 Irrigation automation can help in better water consumption and help
reducing the water wastage.
 WSNs can be used to control temperature and humidity levels in
greenhouses so that, when they fall below threshold levels, host
systems can trigger an appropriate response in order to fix the
problem.
Types of applications
• Military applications:
 WSNs can be used for:
• Military situation awareness
• Detection of enemy unit’s movements on land or sea
• Chemical or biological threats
• Offering logistics in urban warfare
• Battlefield surveillance command, control, communications,
• Reconnaissance, computing, intelligence, surveillance, and targeting systems
Types of applications
• Military applications:
 Intelligent assistance: Wireless sensors can be installed on
unmanned robotic vans, tanks, fighter planes, missiles, or
submarines to direct them to their goals as well as to enable them to
coordinate and collaborate with each other effectively

 Object protection: Wireless sensors can be mounted around

sensitive objects such as tactical bridges, telecommunication
centers, electrical power generation stations, oil pipelines, water
purification plants, and military nerve centers.
Types of applications
• Military applications:
 Battlefield observation: Wireless sensors can be mounted in
battlefields to monitor and track vehicles, and force movement, all of
which permit close surveillance of enemy forces

 Remote sensing: Wireless sensors are installed for remote sensing

of biological, nuclear, and chemical weapons, as well as for
uncovering possible terrorist attacks.
Types of applications
• Underwater applications:
 Wireless sensors can be deployed at the bottom of oceans, seas,
rivers, and lakes in order to monitor underwater events and report
them in a timely manner

 Ocean-bottom sensor nodes serve excellent means for facilitating

applications for oceanographic data gathering, contamination
observation, offshore investigation, calamity avoidance, and assisted
route-finding applications.

 Unattended or independent underwater vehicles (UVs) with

underwater sensors find applications in discovery of undersea
minerals resources
Types of applications
• Underwater applications:
 For underwater applications, wireless underwater acoustic sensor
networks are used

 Underwater acoustic sensor networks consist of a number of sensors

and vehicles set up to act in a collaborative manner to monitor
related events over a given area.

 By observing the underwater events, the sensors and vehicles self-

organize in an independent network that can adjust to the attributes
of the ocean surroundings
Types of applications
• Underwater applications:
 Conducting underwater search processes is challenging due to the
characteristics of water that include:
• Varying levels of salinity or measure of dissolved salts in sea water,
• Temperature
• Pressure under the surface of water.

 These factors influence underwater wave propagation.

Types of applications varying levels of salinity or measure of dissolved salts in
sea water, temperature, and pressure under the surface of
.water
• Underwater applications:
 Traditional method for ocean-bottom or ocean-column monitoring is
to install underwater sensors that record data during the monitoring
mission, and then pick up the instruments.
 This monitoring tactic has the following drawbacks:
1. Real-time monitoring is not feasible.
2. The amount of data recorded throughout the monitoring mission by each
sensor is restricted by the capability of the on-board memory devices
3. No communication is possible between onshore control systems and the
monitoring devices.
4. If a malfunction happens, it may not be possible to notice it before the
instruments are recovered
Types of applications
• Underwater applications:
 An underwater acoustic network (UAN) is a small-scale network
deployed under water able to gather data using acoustic modes.
 Major research challenges and design issues in the field of UWSN
are:
• Traffic congestion control;
• Security, resilience and robustness
• Dependable data transfer;
• Effective multi-hop acoustic routing;
• Distributed localization and time synchronization;
• Resourceful multiple access;
• Acoustic physical layer.
Types of applications
• Underwater applications:
 Factors influencing the underwater communication:
1. Underwater currents: Changeable flow or current speed influences the
relative position of sensors and also affect the communication quality
because of the noise.
2. Salinity: Increased level of salt in the water increases the density of water
which produces delay in the signal path.
3. Multipath delay spread: Because of the various reflections of transmitted
signals, the signal is received at diverse times, which results in inter-symbol
interference.
4. Surrounding noise: Such noise is generated by underwater currents,
marine life and shipping in the harbor.
5. Temperature instability: Experiments have revealed that tidally driven
temperature fluctuations have consequences on acoustic communication.
6. Multipath fading: Whenever we have waves of multipaths that are out of
phase, the signal strength at the receiver is decreased. Usually called
Rayleigh fading.
Types of applications
• Underwater applications:
 Main limiting factors in UWSN: Restricted memory
• Since sensors have limited memory, there is a requirement to
reduce the data saving and communication.
• Table-driven routing techniques with additional memory can be
considered as an option.
• Since retransmissions necessitate store-and-forward means for
data packets, and if these retransmissions are reduced, then the
issue of small memory will be lightened
Types of applications
• Underwater applications:
 Main limiting factors in UWSN: Propagation delay
• The delay in underwater networks is relatively high compared to
air, decreasing the speed of propagation to about 1.5 × 103.
• All the propagation-delay-connected calculations during
implementation should be done using speed of sound in water.
Types of applications
• Underwater applications:
 Main limiting factors in UWSN: Low frequency
• Communication between nodes in UWSNs takes place in very low
(acoustic) frequencies and not radio frequencies.
• Absorption attenuates the signal which is greater for higher
frequencies.
• Therefore, an acoustic channel with frequency in the range 20 Hz–
20 kHz is favored.
• Hence, slighter attenuation can be obtained up to a certain level
at the expense of the propagation time.
Types of applications
• Underwater applications:
 Main limiting factors in UWSN: Large transmission power
• Due to the resistance of water to wave propagation, attenuation
is more severe in case of UWSN
• The transmitter must send signals with higher power in order to
receive a signal with good signal-to-noise ratio.
Types of applications
• Underwater applications:
 Main limiting factors in UWSN: Modest bandwidth
• The bandwidth for underwater acoustic channel is limited and
mainly relies on both frequency and transmission distance.
• Reason for limited bandwidth is the underwater absorption with
most acoustic systems operating below 30 kHz.
• The packets size that sensor nodes make use of must be as short
as possible to avoid high transmission delay
Types of applications
• Underwater applications:
 To gain an insight into the communication among different sensors in
a UWSN is given in Figure below:

 The figure depict a small network seven

sensors
 The sensors communicate with other
with the help of acoustic links
 Sensor 1 is communicating with sensor 2
 Sensors 4 and 7 are communicating with
each other with the help of sensors 5
and 6
 Sensor 3 is isolated since no other
sensors is in its transmission range
Types of applications
• Underwater applications:
 Figure below depicts the architecture from the horizontal viewpoint
at the sea plane.
 The figure shows the location of
local sinks and sensors at the
surface of the sea.
 The local sinks are assumed to be
static and arranged in the form of a
grid.
 This way, the local sinks are
capable of communicating with
each other via both acoustic and
radio frequency forms
Types of applications
• Underwater applications:
 This figure shows another
architecture from the angle
of the vertical view at the
sea surface
 The relative place of the
sensors is in the water
column under the sea
surface.
Thank
You