Model based Real-Time networked applications for Wireless Sensor Networks

In industrial contexts it might be useful to deploy Wireless Sensor Networks to constantly monitor the status of a plant. At early design stage of any monitoring application, it is envisaged to reinforce real-time paradigms both for task execution and node-to-node communication. Model driven applications are usually seamless provided the system description is complete and robust, and the code generation (platform specific) appropriately complies with the model. We present a demo where acceleration measurements gathered by sensor nodes are conveyed to a fixed location devoted to surveillance. A higher level control system or an operator can take action whenever these readings deviate from the expected behavior. We follow a model-based implementation of the system exploiting the Scilab / Scicos support for the ERIKA Enterprise real-time kernel. Timeliness at the node level is reinforced by the features of the kernel scheduler; moreover the recent implementation of the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless communication standard permits time bounded communications among the nodes(1).