GINSENG: Performance Control in Wireless Sensor Networks

http://www.ict-ginseng.eu/

Responsible:

• Prof. Cormac J. Sreenan
  
  
• Tony O'Donovan

Most of the wireless sensor network (WSN) deployments to date have been in areas like environmental monitoring and agriculture where network performance assurances are not a requirement. The resulting architectures and protocols are not suitable for WSNs in other important areas, including plant automation and health monitoring, since they do not provide the performance assurances that are essential in these areas.

Towards this end, the primary goal of the EU-funded GINSENG project are wireless sensor networks that meet application-specific performance targets and that will integrate with industry resource management systems.

The GINSENG Approach

• Planned Deployment: Unlike applications that are based on random deployment, GINSENG assumes a carefully planned and deployed network of sensor nodes as a basis to achieve performance control.
• Software Components: GINSENG requires software components with assured performance. This includes operating systems that execute tasks within a given time and predictable access to the radio medium by means of a MAC layer that enables access to the radio medium within a certain time bound.
• Network Algorithms: A set of algorithms that ensure control of the network with respect to areas including topology and overflow control.
• Performance Debugging: Due to the inherent uncertainties in WSNs e.g. node availability and the radio medium, it is possible to experience undesired changes in the operating environment, motivating the need to monitor and potentially debug the performance of the deployed system. GINSENG targets mechanisms and tools to carry out performance debugging of deployed systems and reconfiguration when given performance metrics can no longer be achieved.
• Industry IT Systems: Another objective of GINSENG is the integration with industry IT systems.

 The GINSENG Partners

The partners involved in the GINSENG project are:

• University College Cork
• University of Coimbra
• Petrogal SA
• SAP AG
• Swedish Institute of Computer Science AB
• Technische Universitaet Carolo-Wilhelmina zu Braunschweig
• University of Cyprus
• Lancaster University