On The Design and Capacity Of Wide Area Sensor Networks

Paul W. Donnelly

My name is Paul Donnelly. I am an undergraduate student within the department of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. I am majoring in Computer Engineering with a minor in Computer Science. I am also a Public Branch Exchange network technician with the U.S. Air Force and 228th Combat Communications Squadron within the Tennessee Air National Guard. I have a strong interest in the design and testing of internetworking devices such as carrier-class routers and switches as well as integrated voice and data public branch exchanges

This summer I had the privilege to work on a project called SensorNet. SensorNet is an integrated network of wire line and wireless mobile and stationary transducers which continually monitor the environment for user defined critical sensing events such as Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive (CBRNE) threats.

Quick and efficient deployment of mobile SensorNet systems is a critical need. When intuition based home network deployment models are used to deploy wireless networks in support of SensorNet coverage areas, deployment time varies widely with respect to the experience of the technician and their knowledge of the RF propagation area. Creating effective wireless network deployments requires an actual sample of RF propagation in the deployment zone and good mathematical models which simulate actual attenuation factors within the same environment to high degree. Using both real and modeled RF propagation characteristics data as inputs into a simulation will allow a wireless technician to virtually adjust and move transmitters and receivers until the network is tuned (coverage maximized and interference minimized).

In this project, we identified and developed wireless sensor network deployment models and processes for use within the SensorNet program. We surveyed early and recent (RF) Radio Frequency Network deployment models and state of the practice tools. We also identified outdoor and indoor RF propagation models. We present a preliminary systematic approach to the deployment of wireless sensor networks which combines actual measurement and mathematical modeling of RF propagation in the deployment area. This design procedure was applied to and validated by actual deployment in the ORNL east campus quad.

Contact Paul Donnelly at pdonnell@utk.edu