Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have recently been receiving a growing amount of interest, both within the research and the commercial communities. Their applications exist across residential, commercial, not-for-profit and public sectors. They have paved the way to new monitoring and control possibilities. Since WSNs have displayed great versatility, emerging applications are demanding the use of WSNs in harsher environments. This harshness can be either due to inaccessible terrain, to the practicality of traditional installments, to hazardous and life threatening consequences, or to other conditions such as extreme levels or variations of temperature, humidity, mobility or vibration. The reliability of the communication medium is also a factor when heavy rain or sand storms occur, or when the network is deployed in certain soil structures such as oil sands, volcanoes or sliding mud. Network operations for WSNs in harsh environments need to be maintained despite faults affecting either single or multiple sensors. The objective of this research is to design WSNs that are inherently robust and reliable, able to withstand the unpredictable and faulty nature of harsh environments. Our approach will also maximize the benefit of sensors where they can still be used despite partial failure. Network functions, such as routing and task allocation, will also be able to sustain various forms of failures imposed by the loss of nodes in the harsh environment. This research will provide benefits to academic and industrial technology and environmental sectors, particularly those where mission-critical deployments in harsh environments were previously impossible. Increasing the reliability and range of WSNs will directly benefit the Canadian WSN manufacturing, programming and deployment industrial sector, providing them with a unique ability to install robust WSNs that are sustainable in harsh environments and maintain network objectives.We anticipate that five graduate students will be trained throught this project: three PhD students and two Master's students. The practical, state-of-the art network design experience gained by students involved in this research is in high demand in the industrial sector.