Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

This project aims at achieving a major advance in the area of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) leading to a wide use of low-energy wireless sensor networks that are ubiquitous, inexpensive, reliable, and highly autonomous. The design approach will be based on the cognitive concept which is defined as the ability of the system to be aware of the environment in which cognitive nodes are deployed and the use of this information to make individual or collective decisions that benefit the network performance. The research will be based on three major themes. In Theme 1 we will build a complete system profile that includes a map for the channels linking all nodes, user/application requirements, and predicted network status. Theme 2 focuses on deployment planning strategies and distributed control and decision making. Theme 3 is devoted to hardware implementation, field deployment and tests. The project targets environment monitoring applications (such as natural resources monitoring, pollution control, and wildlife tracking). The co-applicants have the necessary expertise to successfully conduct this research and their respective laboratories are equipped with the necessary hardware and software required for the testbed and prototypes that will be developed. The industrial partners will be actively involved in this project and will provide expertise and training to the students. They have the capacity to exploit the project findings and are enthusiastic about bringing them through licensing and commercialization stages. Through this project our partners will enhance their technological readiness, improve their technical expertise, and develop, test and validate new products. The team is composed of closely collaborating researchers, engineers and experts in environment applications (end users). The research will provide hands-on training to a large number of students who will be a key asset to the development and growth of the Canadian telecommunications sector. The project will be instrumental in achieving ubiquitous application-specific WSNs for the Canadian public, government and business, and enhance Canada's position in the communications sector as well as stimulate growth in our economy and prosperity to our society.