Model-Driven Framework to Speed up Design and Exploitation of Sensor Networks

Sensor network design involves multiple steps including network sizing, hardware and software development, analysis/simulations, and data exploitation. Often, each step is handled by a specific tool. These tools are usually not interconnected. Therefore, descriptions are required for each tool. These many descriptions are costly in terms of development time and may lead to design errors. In order to solve these issues, we propose a new framework named Modesene to speed up sensor network development for different kind of applications. Modesene is designed to provide four main processes including multi-facet modeling, network simulations, deployment, and data exploitation. Modesene provides bridges with existing sensor network tools. Thus, a description in Modesene can be automatically transformed in each tool. Modesene can perform simulations and generate codes. We validate Modesene through a smart building use-case with different possible solutions. Based on Omnet++ simulator, Modesene can estimate node lifetime, costs, packet loss, etc. Subsequently, these results can be used to drive appropriate solutions. Then, the code generator provides source codes for sensor/gateway nodes, and for data exploitation. Compared to existing frameworks, Modesene supports all design steps, i.e, from network sizing to data exploitation.