A Middleware-Based Approach for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are networked embedded systems that use small size devices with some processing and short-range radio communication capabilities for monitoring and controlling systems and environments. However, languages and IDE (Integrated Development Environments) used to develop applications for WSN are often strictly related to the involved HW/SW platform leading to complex activities, especially when dealing with heterogeneous WSN composed of nodes with different hw features, operating systems, communication standards, etc... A middleware (MW) is a SW abstraction layer between operating systems and applications that simplify operations, enable heterogeneity and masks the basic HW/SW layers (of remote or local devices). Finally, a middleware concretely helps the designer to develop applications, and this is especially true in the heterogeneous WSN world. So, this work presents a middleware-based approach for WSN that copes with radio heterogeneity, i.e. it is able to transport data across heterogeneous networks (i.e. based on different communication standard) while offering to the designer an homogenous API (Application Programming Interface) for the applications development.