Sensor Networks
Research into sensor networks, led by Dr Niki Trigoni, focuses on systems for traffic monitoring, emergency detection, wildlife sensing, UAV coordination and acoustic underwater sensing. Five projects are underway, funded by EPSRC and EOARD.
- Sensing, Unmanned, Autonomous Aerial VEhicles (SUAAVE): The focus of SUAAVE lies in the creation and control of swarms of helicopter UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) that are individually autonomous (i.e not under the direct realtime control of a human) but that collaboratively self-organise:to sense the environment in the most efficient way possible; to respond to node failures; and to report their findings to a base station on the ground. We have performed real UAV experiments to derive observation models that determine the accuracy of onboard sensors (e.g. cameras). Using realistic observation models, we designed distributed algorithms that enable UAVs to collaboratively search for a target. We are currently working on the use of UAVs to bridge communications between ground nodes, as well as to collect sensor data from a bed of ground sensors. For more details, please see this project's website and publications.
- Acoustic Actuated Sensor Networks for Industrial Processes (AASN4IP): The aim of this project is to develop an underwater mobile sensor network for exploring and monitoring enclosed and cluttered underwater environments like nuclear waste storage ponds. For the robots to sense and explore the storage pools, they must be able to determine their positions in these underwater environments. However, the cluttered nature of our application scenarios presents us with unique challenges. The ultrasound pulses used for performing range measurements can reflect and bounce off multiple surfaces before arriving at the the transducer. These multipath reflections introduce large positive errors in some of the estimated distances between the sensor nodes. These erroneous measurements make it very difficult to estimate the true positions of sensor nodes. Within this project, we are investigating one-hop and multi-hop localization techniques that are robust to non-line-of-sight measurements with large positive errors. We are also exploring the problem of optimally placing special-purpose 'localizer' nodes to further improve localization accuracy. For more details, please see this project's website and publications.
- Mobile and Sensor Nodes for Wildlife Monitoring (WILDSENSING): This project involves the deployment of an automated wildlife monitoring system for analyzing the social co-location patterns of European badgers (Meles meles) residing in a dense woodland environment. The system is made up of three components. The first consists of active RFID transmitters that are attached directly to European badgers (Meles meles) as wearable collars. They are monitored by a second component consisting of a collection of fixed detection nodes that are distributed throughout the woods at key locations close to known badger setts and latrines. The third component further complements the assembly by providing a bed of fixed sensor nodes that are deployed within badger foraging areas to monitor micro-climatic conditions and their effect on species migration and mobility patterns. In this context, we have proposed a delay-tolerant data collection approach, which leverages the movement of zoologists and other environmental scientists to efficiently collect sensor data. Not only do we prioritize data based on their urgency, but we also prioritize nodes based on the frequency in which mobile sinks visit them. In this way, we forward data to carefully selected storage nodes, purely based on data and node priorities. We have also investigated a biologically-inspired approach, based on gene regulatory networks, for automatically configuring parameters of the sensor network operation (e.g. sensing duty cycle) in response to changes in environmental conditions. Finally, we have recently started looking at the problem of tracking animals when they are underground. For more details, please see this project's website and publications.
- Transport Information Monitoring Environment (TIME-EACM): Road congestion in the UK costs of the order of £20bn pounds per annum. Urban areas would considerably benefit from a sensor network infrastructure able to detect traffic information at high spatial and temporal resolutions. In this project, we investigate two distinct approaches to collecting and disseminating traffic information: using special-purpose stationary sensor nodes (inductive loops, laser or infrared sensors) that collect and disseminate traffic information at regular intervals, and using mobile sensor nodes, e.g. vehicles equipped with GPS and wireless transceivers, that opportunistically collect information as they are roaming through the city. For more details, please see this project's website and publications.
- Agent-based Area Exploration and Event Detection in Emergency Scenarios: When an emergency occurs within a building, it is critical to explore the area as fast as possible in order to find victims and contain hazards. In this project, we propose the deployment of a group of autonomous mobile nodes, referred to as agents, to acquire all the information that could assist the task of the first responders. Such operations, however, may be obstructed by a number of limitations, e.g. the possible lack of a terrain map (the environment could anyway be heavily changed after a disaster), the lack of GPS positioning, the failure of previously established networks, and the short-range and often unreliable wireless indoor communication. In this project, we take into account these limitations, and propose a novel architecture consisting of both mobile nodes (agents) and stationary nodes (inexpensive smart devices). As agents enter the emergency area, they sprinkle inexpensive smart devices on the floor to tag the environment with a state. By reading and updating the local state (the state of the tags within a short communication range), agents are able to coordinate indirectly with each other, without relying on long-range wireless communication among each other. For more details, please see this project's website and publications.
News
- March 2011: A paper from the AASN4IP project has been accepted to IPSN 2011, only 18 papers were accepted from 87 submissions. The paper can be found here.
- March 2011: Andrew Markham has been awarded a three year EPSRC Cross Disciplinary Fellowship to use magneto-inductive communication and tracking to monitor badgers and their habitat underground.
- November 2010: Our presentation on magneto-inductive underground tracking of animals wins the best presentation award at ACM SenSys 2010!
- June 2010: Two papers (WildSensing and Underground tracking) are accepted to ACM SenSys 2010, only 25 papers in total were accepted from over 145 submissions!
- May 2010: Two papers presented at IEEE ICRA 2010 from the SUAAVE project. The paper on probabilistic search is here and the one using cameras for searching here.
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Selected Publications
| Evolution and Sustainability of a Wildlife Monitoring Sensor Network: the WildSensing System. Ricklef Wohlers Vladimir Dyo Stephen A. Ellwood David W. Macdonald Andrew Markham Cecilia Mascolo Bence Pasztor Salvatore Scellato Niki Trigoni and Kharsim Yousef In Accepted to appear in ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks. 2011. |
| Effect of rainfall on link quality in an outdoor forest deployment Stephen A. Ellwood Andrew Markham Niki Trigoni In Proceedings of the International Conference on Wireless Information Networks and Systems‚ Athens‚ Greece. July, 2010. |
| Demo Abstract: Magneto−inductive tracking of underground animals David W. Macdonald Andrew Markham Niki Trigoni Stephen A. Ellwood In 8th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (Sensys 2010). Zurich‚ Switzerland. November, 2010. |