Design and implementation of a wireless sensor network for smart living spaces

After the evolution over the last decade, the wireless sensor network (WSN) technology is successfully adopted into applications such as remote medical care, health monitoring, smart houses and vehicle electron fields. Rapid advancement of many technologies such as IC design, sensor technology, circuits/firmware development, communication protocol design, and network programming was incorporated into modem WSN technology and was recognized as one of the most important emerging technology. In order to further expand the application arena of WSN technology, a team of researchers from different fields, funded by Nation Science Council (NSC), Taiwan are now working together to push the technology forward and focus on a low cost WSN platform which may enable the application of WSN technology in general households or say smart living space. The first objective of the group was to establish a new wireless sensor network development platform with very low cost sensor nodes and also free software. With the new platform, the deployment cost of WSN technology will be minimized, and thus the application of the technology on different new areas can be explored especially the application of smart living space. This paper will detail the Super Node and Simple Node low-cost sensor code designed in this project, and also the software development platform, packet routing, data collection will be further introduced. The modulus design concept of both a Simple Node and Super Node for further integration with other application circuits in order to facilitate the prototype design for different applications will also be detailed.