Wireless Sensor Network Platforms

Abstract

A wireless sensor network is a network made up of many tiny intercommunicating computers equipped with one or several sensors. Each tiny computer represents a node of the network. The nodes are self-contained units typically consisting of a power supply with limited capacity, a radio transceiver, a microcontroller, and one or more sensors. This article gives an introduction to wireless sensor networks for structural health monitoring, shows the general architecture of sensor nodes, and overviews current hardware and software platforms. Furthermore, it shows the characteristics and limits of such monitoring systems and gives advice to choose a suitable platform to an application. Because nodes are powered by an autonomous source, energy-related aspects, energy storage, and scavenging are presented as well.