Wireless sensor network for urban application

• Grant number: 10/18389-3
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: March 01, 2011
• End date: February 28, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Electrical Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Dennis Brandão
• Grantee: Dennis Brandão
• Host Institution: Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Rodrigo Palucci Pantoni

Abstract

Significant scientific and technological advances during the last decade has enabled the use of wireless sensor networks for a wide range of application, from wild animal tracking to structural monitoring and from industrial automation to the management of urban utilities. This research project proposes the study and the development of an urban wireless sensor network for smart grid application on public lighting. The functional requisites for this wireless networks were recently defined by IETF and IEEE and related work indicate that the use of ad hoc mesh networks allied with multi-hop routing over a FHSS based MAC protocol results in high end-to-end delivery ratio. The proposed methodology includes the simulation of the OpenWSN protocol stack and its deployment into experimental prototypes, modified by the insertion of a routing scheme based on the GGPRS protocol combined with hybrid metrics for the best neighbor selection. The simulations will be executed over urban scenarios imported from digital maps of selected Brazilian cities and will be oriented to the scalability and applicability analysis of the proposed protocol. The wireless network functional verification will be concluded by pilot scale experiments with network nodes specifically designed for this purpose. The expected results includes the achievement of theoretical and practical knowledge about urban wireless sensor networks for public lighting management, as well as the development of an open experimental wireless sensor network development platform composed of both hardware and software resources. (AU)