Information intensive wireless sensor networks: Challenges and solutions

Tremendous advancements in embedded systems, sensors and wireless communications technology have made it possible to build large-scale wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Due to their potential applications, WSNs have attracted significant attention to the industry, academic, and government organizations. In particular, by commanding a large number of distributed and coordinated sensor nodes, WSNs can effectively act as the human-physical world interface in future digital world through sensing and actuating. However, the inherent characteristics of WSNs typified by extremely scarce resources (e.g., bandwidth, CPU, memory and battery power), high degree of uncertainty, and lack of centralized control pose significant challenges in providing the desired quality, information assurance, reliability, and security. This is particularly important for mission critical applications that involve information intensive WSNs including video sensors. In this talk, we will examine the uncertainty-driven unique challenges and key research problems in information intensive wireless sensor networks in the areas of aggregation, clustering, routing, data dissemination, coverage and connectivity, and security. We will present our novel solutions to some of these problems and conclude with future directions.