Researchers have developed a new software, which allows wireless sensor (WSNs) networks to operate at minimum energy. This technology would enhance efficiency of natural disaster warning systems. The study appeared in the International Journal of Sensor Networks.
WSNs are utilized to supervise urban and wild environments and ecosystems. They are crucial in predicting events that threaten environments and species by collecting data from animal habitats and are useful in forecasting flash-flood alerts and monitoring environments and volcanic activity. In densely populated urban communities, these wireless sensing equipment prove to be an invaluable aid and focuses on the impact of vehicles and people on the environment via mobile emissions monitoring. It also monitors the physical environment. However, the WSNs require energy to operate.
Patricia Morreale, a Computer Scientist at the Kean University in New Jersey along with her colleagues Paul Croft and Feng Qi from the Kean’s School of Environmental and Life Sciences, explained that data is reported by a mesh network of wireless sensors to a central site, which is used for risk identification and environmental monitoring. Thus, they have designed a system that would reduce the energy needs as compared to regular WSNs.
This new approach to WSNs is said to be green, mainly due to reduced energy consumption. Environmental data could be received and communicated via periodic updates, as opposed to the timestamp synchronization approach used by standard WSNs.
The team members revealed that this method would decrease the amount of communication needed between network nodes, which would lead to an overall energy saving without compromising the nature of the information collected.
Source: http://www.inderscience.com/