Talk:Wireless sensor network/Archive 1

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Please do not include information about centers that are unknown to most of the scientific community. -Wikimaniac18

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Oh dear a lot more general material is needed in this article - rather than ranting about each lab. A student/general reader is going to get a wierd intro to the topic.

I can't believe people are deleting links to important national research centres (eg Tyndall for Ireland)! We need links to all the major long-term WSN institutions here - otherwise we mis-represent the topic. - Kirk


 * Agreed! It is interesting for researchers in the field to find a collection of links to institutes active in the :field, e.g. to find job post-doc opportunities! If some believe that only major groups should be on the page, :there could be two sections: one with links to "minor" groups, and one with links to "major" groups. (But who is :going to referee between major and minors???) Anyway, I would like to see Tyndall for Ireland back on the page, :and many others too!...


 * regards, --Powo 08:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Major challenges
I changed the operating system section to an earlier version, a list, since the revised version on Jan 5 contains judgmental sentences, which are not appropriate to appear in Wikipedia.

Hi all. I find this line in the text: ''There are four major challenges associated with Sensor networks: 1. Power consumption 2. Lifetime 3. Communication 4. Size''

I have a few questions/suggestions:

* I think size  means scalability, yes? * Whats the difference between power consumption and lifetime? Are they really two different objectives?

It seems to me that amongst challenges, should be pointed that there are:

* hadwrare challenges (build smaller and cheaper nodes) * software challenges: scalability, robustness, fault tolerance, self configuration, (secure, mobility?)

This could probably become a small section in its own (I mean, building upon and improving the basics hereabove). What do you people think?

regards, Powo 08:08, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

network size might mean scalability but just Size does not mean scalability. Size refers to the actual physical size of the nodes ..we need to keep the size small. Individual nodes cannot be large or heavy (e.g. if we are attaching a sensor node to a human e.g. a patient - then the node needs to be as small and as light as possible).

Scalability is the general scalability concept from wireless networks, distributed computing or computer networks. Scalability refers to the performance metric that if the size of the sensor networks is increased (say from 10 to 10,000) does it still perform well or not.

power consumption and lifetime are inter-related concepts but slightly different. power consumptions generally refers to the hardware power consumption aspects e.g. how much power does it take to turn the radio from sleep to listen state etc etc. Some people do use the term power consumption for software tuning that improves power consumption as well. However, lifetime means the general life time of the network as a whole. Some people consider a sensor networks dead if 50% of the nodes die, some consider the WSN dead when the first node die. Depending on which definition you are using - the lifetime of the network means when the first node or 50% nodes die.

Muneeb.ali 19:49, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that "power consumption" and "lifetime" of a wireless sensor network are different. The "lifetime" is an objective we want to accomplish. The "power consumption" is a practical reality that we will have to work around. For example, we may want a sensor network to have a usable lifetime of at least 5 years. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this:
 * Use a solar panel. Only collect data during sunlit hours.
 * Use a battery at each node large enough to contain all 5 years worth of power
 * Use a small battery at each node large enough to carry it through the night, and a solar panel to top it off during the day. Use batteries that are reliable enough to survive daily charge/discharge cycles for 5 years.
 * Use a battery at each node large enough to contain 6 months of power. Periodically drop off fresh nodes, and gather up old nodes for recharging/replacing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.19.73.101 (talk) 17:59, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Category
I think wireless sensor network research has grown intoa substantial area of its own. I think maybe we must start a new category. Muthiah Annamalai 23:14, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Hey, why not! I am unaware of the wiki-etiquette on categories. It seems quitea few  of the articles which would fall under this category are still stubs. At the same time, it could be a good way to improve general quality of articles on WSNs. --Powo 07:15, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Hot Topics
I don't think the hot topics listed on the page are the currently debated/researched topics. Middleware, programming architecture/abstract, Debugging/monitoring seems a better list. Security is not hot 'yet' :) and neither mobility. A look at the proceedings of Sensys (2005) gives a better idea of what's hot and what's not.

srangwal 22:32, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

yea the hot topics there are definitely not hot :) .. i might try to fix them some time later

Muneeb.ali 19:32, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Some Improvements
I would like to suggest some modifications required in the organization of Wireless sensor network wikipedia. Research Centers section is not so important for the naïve user who reads this article. So it is better to concentrate on the Issues related to Wireless sensor network. Give more information on the existing state-of-art. Also I didnt find any sort of hardware information in this article related to sensor nodes. It is better if we could introduce as a separate section or as a seperate article in wikipedia. I would be more happy to actively participate in doing so. Looking for the comments on this.

User:Adimallikarjunareddy 2024  July  29

Section on Conferences
Added a section on conferences and wrote entries for sensys and ewsn ... someone else has added two more conferences to the list with empty entries .. i might write them if i get time

Muneeb.ali 09:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

External Links Section
I am reviewing the external links section right now


 * Fixed Overview of wireless sensor networks from the IEEE Computer Society as the link was not pointing to the overview .. now the link points to http://csdl2.computer.org/comp/mags/co/2004/08/r8041.pdf


 * Deleting Software Infrastructure for Wireless Sensor Networks. No offense to TinyMaCLaS people but I dont see any such material on their website that an average wikipedia browser who is looking for WSN information might find useful. Plus the title "Software Infrastructure for Wireless Sensor Networks" is confusing. TinyMaCLaS talks about some new ``Distributed Compositional Language" for wireless sensor networks (and the language is not available for download).


 * Deleting BiSNET: Biologically-inspired architecture for Sensor NETworks Web Site. It is some relatively new research group (they have produced 3 papers so far all in 2006) and i am of the view that the research group is not a classic representative of sensor networks (by far). Again no offense to the research group people, I am sure that you are doing great work which would be valuable to us sometime in the future.


 * Deleting *ZigbeeMania (Resource site for sensor networks built on top of Zigbee and 802.15.4. Contains resources on Zigbee and 802.15.4, applications examples and links to Zigbee solution providers) Reason: I do not find the website very useful for average wikipedia browsers and the website is not related to sensor networks that much. (Again no offense to the website owners)


 * Added a new sub-heading courses and listed down three very helpful course webpages
 * Added a new sub-heading companies and moved all commercial links under that heading
 * Small other changes like adding short descriptions of external links so the readers know what to expect from the links

Muneeb.ali 11:11, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

About External Links
I am bit concerned about the material that is creeping for this article. As I already discussed, why would a new techie searching for info about WSN needs to know the mentioned research centres. If we think so, then there are plenty in the world who is doing research in the area of Wireless Sensor Network. I feel that they are not necessary in this article. Otherwise we can start one more wiki related to all the research centers in this area !!!. I still feel that this article lacks required information. To the extent possible I have added material to this. If I find some time I will make more technical.................

User:Adimallikarjunareddy 2024  July  29

I agree that the stuff about research centers needs to be moved to a new wiki ... people opposing this could think of it as, in music pages..you normally have a separate discography wiki ..

btw finally the two articles on "sensor networks" and "wireless sensor networks" have been merged ..so this is the main article on WSN on wikipedia now and also from external links


 * Removed dBscale Europe (Environmental Sensing Europe) -- not much information on website yet
 * Removed ShreeDutt Technologies, India -- page under-construction

Muneeb.ali 01:43, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I've created a wiki to accommodate the material that does not fit into this article. . Please feel free to contribute.

User:gerculanum 12:05, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

GFDL text
Dear competitor,

please do not remove the link to my text book "FDL'led textbook on sensor networks" again. I understand that my particular reference has been considered a duplicate link though I have never inserted it myself (I feel a little bit honored that someone else did that :-) I would like to make the book available as "further reading" for all readers. I have so far used it for lectures, even in different countries and I believe that it has proven to be a worthy contribution in this context. That's why I removed the link and added it to the book-section. I can understand that an author wants (and has a right) to sell a commerical book so I do not care for being moved down in the list but please do not completely remove the link.

Thanks and best regards,

Thomas Haenselmann, 10 September 2006


 * I'm assuming that this message is addressed to me, since I have been editing the entry involving your text. Several points:
 * Wikipedia is not supposed to be a used as a soapbox or a way to promote things that you have created yourself.
 * That said, I think your text is valuable, and want to see it included in the article.
 * I have never removed the link to your text, I have simply moved it from the Further reading section to the References section, since I was using it as an explicit reference in the article (see point 2 above).
 * I'd prefer that the link appear in the references section rather than further reading, but would also rather that it be duplicated than removed as a reference completely (this article needs more actual cited references to comply with Wikipedia's policy on verifiability. I'll leave it up to you to consider my point 1 above, and make your own decision about the appropriateness of using Wikipedia to promote awareness of your book (as opposed to using your book as a reference for constructing a Wikipedia article).
 * --Allan McInnes (talk) 18:52, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The current state of the text is an acceptable compromise, however the "references" link is not crucial in my eyes. It is only linked to a very general statement which can be found in most introductions on SN, one of them being the publications of Kai (which I reference in the book myself). The textbook on the other hand is being used by a couple of colleagues, so I would really be happy if it could remain in the "further readings"-section.
 * Best regards,
 * --Thomas Haenselmann, 11 September 2006
 * --Thomas Haenselmann, 11 September 2006


 * I agree that the current use of the book as a reference is somewhat lightweight. It was my intent to make use of it for further citations elsewhere in the article when I had the time. --Allan McInnes (talk) 18:50, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

About Research Centres
I removed all the research centers links from the wiki. No offense to anyone who posted those links. It is just for the clarity and the clearence of this wiki page. Suggestions are welcome.

User:Adimallikarjunareddy 2024  July  29

WikiProject memberships
03:53, 27 November 2006 Allan McInnes replaced by. Why not both? I have put back. The wikipedia:WikiProject Telecommunications, especially one of its participants, is already working on articles in this area. Wireless sensor networks is not only about routing, distributed systems and other traditional computer networking issues, but to a large extent about lower layer protocol issues, for example multiple access protocols, physical layer issues, radio resource management, radio electronics, sensors, etc, which normally is considered as telecommunications and electrical engineering. Mange01 02:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Because I've never seen an article that's "part" of more than one project on Wikipedia (most likely because different projects have different goals, guidelines, and style standards). But I suppose that doesn't mean it can't happen. I frankly don't really care which project the article is "part" of, or if it's part of both (or neither, which seems to be the common case for articles on topics that lie at the intersection of several projects). I moved the article to the networking project in the first place because the assignment to the telecom project seemed rather odd to me (I've never heard or seen WSNs being categorized as telecommunications systems), while the networking project seemed a better fit (the lower layer issues you mention are not necessarily outside the purview of computer networking - Tanenbaum's book on computer networks, as one example, covers physical and medium access layer issues as well as higher level protocols). Realistically, WSNs are sufficiently interdisciplinary that they probably don't fit well in any single project (a good argument could probably also be made for including them in whatever project deals with embedded systems). If you feel the need to mark out some territory here, by all means go ahead. --Allan McInnes (talk) 03:55, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Operating Systems
Someone removed the text about operating systems and replaced it with the old list. However, since "Most Wikipedia articles should consist of prose, and not just a list of links" I reverted the section to the version with the prose. If someone thinks that the text should be updated, either do so directly by editing the text, or give comments and suggest improvements here. Rrelf 12:24, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Request for Sensor mote/node page
I was just thinking that although it is more important to have a sensor network page than a sensor node page, it could be a plus to have both. We could add some more node specific material (such as currently available nodes on the market, etc...) on the sensor mote page, and keep the higher level (less hardware specific) discusion on this page. What do you think? Regards, --Powo 12:44, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, that would be a very useful addition to the collected content. The current collections I have seen are incomplete, or lack standard information on each node. Perhaps Operatinf Systems could also be split? I'm sure that there are tons of CompSci fellas out there willing to fill a page of Wikipedia with info on various versions and types of OSs. That way you would have a high level central article that branches into a HW and SW stream Diom1982 15:49, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Hello, I have created wiki on sensor node.Have a look at it and suggest any changes on the organization of wiki.−Adi 04:58, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Illustrations
Hello all, I was just looking through the page and I'm impressed by the progress on it. But I think it is lacking one thing in particular... pretty pictures. Given that WSNs has many publications with many nice illustrations I was hoping to find a colourful picture or two. I'll leave it up to the regular contributors to decide what will fit best with the content.

Thanks, Diom1982 15:49, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, I have added a picture depicting typical architecture of a sensor network.

Thanks, —Adi 05:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Links to empty forums
Someone added a link to his own empty forum. I removed the link, and it was added again. Had the forum been active with much useful information, a link to it could have been relevant. At this point, however, the forum has no content and the link could just has well been going to an empty website. I therefore remove this link once again. If someone can put forth a compelling argument as to why it should be added again, please do so here and add the link again. Rrelf 11:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Someone added a link to an empty forum again (same link?). I reverted it for the same reasons as above. Please discuss here before adding this link again. Perhaps there is a reason for including link that I've missed? Rrelf 11:19, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: Per WP:EL and WP:NOT, fora should not be included anyway, irrespective the amount of discussion they contain. Mind  matrix  12:40, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, I guess that settles it then. Thanks. Rrelf 15:37, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello. Sorry for just replying now but I didn't know about this discussion page. I've previously added the link to a WSN Forum (for several times). I've noticed in the history section that the link was removed because the forum was empty. Several users have registered and several discussions have already taken place in the forum. For that reason I think that the forum should not be considered empty and is now a valid resource about the WSN topic. It is located at http://wsensor.com. The objective of that forum is to promote the discussion of Wireless Sensor Networks. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GamaFranco (talk • contribs) 18:22, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

wsn
wsn —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.109.3.102 (talk) 02:51, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Characteristics section
Anyone care to rewrite this section? The introduction to the paper: "A survey on sensor networks" (2002) ( if it helps) contains a reasonable wording of the charactersistics that could be used as a reference... I intend to have a go at rewriting it at some point, but lack the time right now (stupid dissertation). Might be a month before I get the time, but just thought I'd leave a link to this paper in case anyone else has a change to work on it before me. Tr00st (talk) 17:26, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

suggestion for minor change
Under the "Platforms" section, in the "Programming languages" sub-section, the first bullet says: but I think the inner nested parenthetical expression "(@)" is misplaced. I think it should say or perhaps even . (right?)  Any comments? [before I edit boldly]? --Mike Schwartz (talk) 22:39, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * c@t (Computation at a point in space (@) Time)
 * c@t (Computation at (@) a point in space Time)
 * c@t (Computation at (@) a point in space Time)