A Framework for Querying Sensor Networks Using Mobile Devices

An interplay between mobile devices and static sensor nodes is envisioned in the near future. This will enable a heterogeneous design space that can offset the stringent resource and power constraints encountered in traditional static sensor networks by taking advantage of the more powerful mobile devices. As such, we present a systematic framework for end-to-end query processing, using a two-layer architecture that consists of mobile devices at the upper layer and static sensor nodes at the bottom layer. One of our key goals is to achieve energy-efficient query injection and data collection by leveraging the mobility and transmission flexibility of objects at the upper layer. We propose a pull query model that contains staged operations including query generation, query routing, query injection, and query result routing. In the context of this model, we investigate a suite of techniques for the scenario with location-ignorant sensor nodes.