Design of a WSN Platform for Long-Term Environmental Monitoring for IoT Applications

TLDR

The Internet of Things enables ubiquitous access to the status and location of diverse objects, and wireless sensor networks are well suited for long‑term environmental data acquisition within IoT systems. This paper presents the functional design and implementation of a complete WSN platform for long‑term environmental monitoring IoT applications. The platform is designed to meet low‑cost, high‑sensor‑count, rapid deployment, long lifetime, low‑maintenance, and high‑quality‑of‑service requirements, with reusable components for diverse monitoring applications.

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) provides a virtual view, via the Internet Protocol, to a huge variety of real life objects, ranging from a car, to a teacup, to a building, to trees in a forest. Its appeal is the ubiquitous generalized access to the status and location of any “thing” we may be interested in. Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are well suited for long-term environmental data acquisition for IoT representation. This paper presents the functional design and implementation of a complete WSN platform that can be used for a range of long-term environmental monitoring IoT applications. The application requirements for low cost, high number of sensors, fast deployment, long lifetime, low maintenance, and high quality of service are considered in the specification and design of the platform and of all its components. Low-effort platform reuse is also considered starting from the specifications and at all design levels for a wide array of related monitoring applications.