Interactive system design and end-to-end optimization in sensor networks

This paper proposes an application oriented four layered quality of service (QoS) stack for wireless sensor networks (WSN), including a supporting system architecture for interacting with WSNs using the MPEG-21 multimedia framework in an medical application setting. The application of the WSNs is signal processing algorithms reporting elaborated observed sensor data to external users. The QoS model supports the tradeoff between end-users expected QoS combined with optimized energy consumption. The MPEG-21 standard is chosen as the media resource framework due to the fact that future hospitals will have networks comprising WSNs supporting an always increasing amount of both low rate medical sensor data as well as high rate audiovisual content. Furthermore due to the heterogeneous set of user terminals and network resources, media adaptation will become important to provide reliable and robust quality of service. In this paper, we argue for an extension of the MPEG-21 terminology for use in biomedical wireless sensor networks and incorporate the requirements needed for medical applications.