Pilot studies of wireless sensor networks: Practical experiences

For enabling successful field pilots of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) applications, the network reliability and prototype testing become limiting factors. Application pilot studies need to operate end-to-end, covering the physical durability of devices, embedded software, and infrastructure interfaces and data collection. This paper summarizes our pilot study experiences, and what tools and practices were required. Six lessons are proposed: a systematic pilot template results straightforward pilot completion; shared WSN infrastructure reduces labor; tailored embedded software testing tools are needed; the pilot must be prepared carefully; the WSN technology must be usable for research partners; and the pilot must be maintained and maintenance tools are required in large scale pilots. Our experiences base on over 20 pilot studies and over 1000 deployed devices. This paper describes 11 main pilots, which utilize from 10 to 377 devices per pilot.