Remote monitoring of indoor environment using mobile robot based wireless sensor network

Remote environmental monitoring is one of the important applications of wireless sensor networking technology where spatially distributed sensor nodes are used to monitor environmental parameters and collaboratively transmit their data through the network. This paper discusses the design of a multi robotic platform within a hybrid wireless sensor network to monitor the environmental changes. The system includes a set of static wireless sensor nodes, a set of mobile robots and a central controller. Mobile robots help to reduce traffic congestions and facilitate close monitoring capabilities. For the effective navigation of the robot, the system uses a known map of the environment, sensor readings and the guidance from the wireless sensor network. The combination of more than one technique for navigation significantly reduces the errors in path planning of the mobile robots. The sensing nodes in the network will forward the accumulated data to the central controller for analysis. The central controller will classify the data based on different threshold levels and records the data. If the system detects an event which exceeds current threshold level, then it will provide an early warning to the authorized users of the system.