FemtoNode: Reconfigurable and customizable architecture for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

With the growth and the development of new applications for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), sensor nodes are able to handle more complex events that require higher processing performance and hardware flexibility. These new features intend to meet the requirements of various applications, as well as to provide customized platforms that have only the needed resources. WSNs often need a flexible architecture able to adapt to design and environment changes. The use of reconfigurable architectures is an alternative to bring more flexibility and more processing capability for the sensor node. This paper proposes a reconfigurable and customizable sensor node called FemtoNode which has a reconfigurable platform and a wireless module to support applications for WSNs, using an object-oriented language Java as specification language of its architecture. The proposed concepts were validated with a case study of an heterogeneous wireless sensor network composed of sensors nodes based on different platforms, whose results are described in this work.