A Proxy-Based Mobility Solution for Critical WSN Applications

The potential of wireless sensor networks (WSN) for a wide range of scenarios has led to some experiments which explore their use in critical applications, such as soldier health monitoring, fire rescue or healthcare. Nevertheless, many obstacles to the effective use of WSNs in these scenarios exist, mainly due to stringent requirements on mobility, losses, latency and reliability. In this paper we propose a novel paradigm for WSN mobility, which successfully satisfies all of these requirements. The proposed approach - named Sensor Mobility Proxy, SMP - has been prototyped and is being studied in a scenario of wearable physiological monitoring in hazardous industrial areas, in the scope of the GINSENG European project. This paper presents the proof-of-concept and some of its first results.