Run time compression of image data in wireless sensor networks

Monitoring of target locations from a remote location is one of the important applications of a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). In such image-based WSN applications, resource-constrained sensor nodes need to capture, compress and transmit a large amount of data. However, the large size of the data and the high transmission rates associated with these applications cause rapid depletion of onboard power and increased congestion in the routing channels of the WSN. Together, these two effects cause the degradation of the performance and early death of wireless sensor nodes. In this paper, the performance improvement in WSNs through the implementation of hardware accelerated image compression is demonstrated.