Design of a WSN software stack Synthesis Evaluation Module

Although Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) comprise one of the most rapidly evolving networking areas, in order to achieve significant widespread use, it is essential to provide tools enabling WSN users (especially the non-expert ones) to design, develop and deploy efficient WSNs with respect to specific requirements. Despite the importance of such objectives a significant lack is identified in the current state-of-the-art development environments, targeting almost exclusively towards expert WSN users and thus requiring significant programming familiarity and WSN in-depth knowledge. This paper aims to present an approach addressing this shortcoming by proposing an efficient Synthesis Evaluation Module (SEM). Through identification and utilization of each software layer's critical characteristics and providing, that appropriate architectural characteristics concerning the system's property predictability are adopted, accurate synthesis indications can be issued to the user. In this way, the user, and particularly the non-expert WSN user, can select the optimal SW synthesis or/and HW platform with respect to the application requirements, thus minimizing potential errors or inefficiencies. Through this effort a flexible and continuously evolving synthesis module is envisioned, aiming at significantly enhancing WSNs' user friendliness, practicality, efficiency and thus the widespread use of WSN deployments.

I. Introduction

Due to the WSN communication paradigm, respective research efforts and actual deployment platforms have received considerable interest by both the academic and industrial society. High flexibility, low cost, low power dissipation and effortless deployment in conjunction with increasing performance capabilities, robustness and time constrained behavior comprise some of the advantages making WSN appealing candidate for a wide range of applications [1] [2] [3].