Operating System Support for Data Acquisition in Sensor Networks

Due to modularity and heterogeneity in wireless sensor networks sensing devices, a sensor application developed for a given platform will seldom be portable to a different one, unless the run-time support systems on those platforms deliver mechanisms that abstract and encapsulate the sensor platform in an adequate manner. In this article we propose a software/hardware interface that is able to abstract families of sensing devices in an uniform fashion. We define classes of sensing devices based on their finality (e.g. sensing acceleration, sensing temperature), and establish a common substrate for each class. Each individual device in a class is able to describe itself and its properties, in a similar fashion to the IEEE 1451 standard sensors transducer electronic data sheet. A thin software layer adapts individual devices to fit the minimal requirements of its sensor class. Software-based self-description allows applications to use individual sensors' extended characteristics. We show that this strategy does not incur in excessive overhead, and presents a significant advantage with relation to solutions found in other operating system for sensor networks