Applications of Wireless Sensor Networks: The State of the Art and Future Trends

A special issue of Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks (ISSN 2224-2708). This special issue belongs to the section "Network Services and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2023) | Viewed by 18724

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of West Attica, 12244 Athens, Greece
Interests: automatic control and automation methodologies and systems; algorithmic study of wireless sensor networks in terms of energy efficiency, congestion avoidance, coverage maximization, and multiobjective optimization
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Guest Editor
Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, University of Peloponnese, Akadimaikou G. K. Vlachou Street, 22131 Tripoli, Greece
Interests: mobile services and applications; network services; open APIs and software/middleware technologies; software performance optimization; IoT
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of West Attica, Athens, Greece
Interests: wireless sensor networks; network services; communication protocols; software technologies; signaling protocols; performance evaluation and testing of network elements

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Guest Editor
Department of Digital Systems, University of Piraeus, Piraeus, Greece
Interests: cybersecurity; ID management and access; IoT security and trust

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The continuous achievement of technological progress has empowered the inexpensive production of wireless sensor nodes that despite their relatively small size have exceptionally advanced sensing, processing, and communication abilities. The cooperative use of a sufficient quantity of such sensor nodes enables a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) to perform concurrent data acquisition of ambient information at several points of interest situated over wide areas.

For this reason, although WSNs were initially used mainly for military purposes, nowadays they support an ever-growing range of human activity in applications of different types and consequently are generally recognized as a very important scientific domain.

This Special Issue aims to accommodate research articles that are related with the most recent stage of technological development and future prospects of WSN applications. Specifically, contributions that address but are not restricted to the following topics are welcome:

  • Healthcare applications: monitoring of hospitalized patients, distant monitoring of patents and elderly people, body wearable monitoring, wireless health examinations, etc.
  • Environmental applications: air monitoring, water monitoring, forest monitoring, fire early detection, seismic activity monitoring, tsunami detection, volcanic activity monitoring, landslide detection, flood detection and monitoring, etc.
  • Military applications: combat monitoring, battlefield surveillance, targeting, battle damage assessment, intruder detection, etc.
  • Athletic applications: athletic performance evaluation, body exhaustion and retrieval monitoring, monitoring of people movement, etc.
  • Agricultural applications: precision agriculture, greenhouse monitoring, crop monitoring, automatic irrigation, etc.
  • Structural health monitoring: monitoring of the changes in materials or/and properties of structural systems, detection and characterization of damage in buildings, bridges, roads and other structures, etc.
  • Environmental monitoring applications: early fire detection, landslide detection, detection and monitoring of floods and river overflows, forest monitoring, mine monitoring, etc.
  • Industrial applications: field inspection, machinery health monitoring, tracking in logistics, monitoring of manufacturing processes, etc.
  • Smart life applications: home automation, smart buildings, smart parking monitoring, smart traffic control, smart transportation, etc.
  • Habitat applications: livestock farming, animal health monitoring, wildlife tracking, etc.
  • Power system applications: smart grids, electrical distribution monitoring, automatic meter remote reading, etc.

Invited papers have to be original and neither published nor under review in any other conference or journal.

Prof. Dr. Dionisis Kandris
Prof. Dr. Nikolaos Tselikas
Dr. George Tselikis
Dr. Ilias Politis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs)
  • healthcare applications
  • environmental applications
  • military applications
  • athletic applications
  • agricultural applications
  • structural health monitoring
  • environmental monitoring applications
  • industrial applications
  • smart life applications
  • habitat applications
  • power system applications

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 2825 KiB  
Communication
Availability of Services in Wireless Sensor Network with Aerial Base Station Placement
by Igor Kabashkin
J. Sens. Actuator Netw. 2023, 12(3), 39; https://doi.org/10.3390/jsan12030039 - 8 May 2023
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1933
Abstract
Internet of Things technologies use many sensors combined with wireless networks for cyber-physical systems in various applications. Mobility is an essential characteristic for many objects that use sensors. In mobile sensor networks, the availability of communication channels is crucial, especially for mission-critical applications. [...] Read more.
Internet of Things technologies use many sensors combined with wireless networks for cyber-physical systems in various applications. Mobility is an essential characteristic for many objects that use sensors. In mobile sensor networks, the availability of communication channels is crucial, especially for mission-critical applications. This article presents models for analyzing the availability of sensor services in a wireless network with aerial base station placement (ABSP), considering the real conditions for using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The studied system uses a UAV-assisted mobile edge computing architecture, including ABSP and a ground station for restoring the energy capacity of the UAVs, to maintain the availability of interaction with the sensors. The architecture includes a fleet of additional replacement UAVs to ensure continuous communication coverage for the sensor network during the charging period of the air-based station UAVs. Analytical expressions were obtained to determine the availability of sensor services in the system studied. Full article
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20 pages, 5237 KiB  
Article
SensoMan: Social Management of Context Sensors and Actuators for IoT
by Georgia M. Kapitsaki, Achilleas P. Achilleos, Philippos Aziz and Athina C. Paphitou
J. Sens. Actuator Netw. 2021, 10(4), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/jsan10040068 - 27 Nov 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3216
Abstract
Sensor networks that collect data from the environment can be utilized in the development of context-aware applications, bringing into sight the need for data collection, management, and distribution. Boards with microcontrollers, such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi, have gained wide acceptance and are [...] Read more.
Sensor networks that collect data from the environment can be utilized in the development of context-aware applications, bringing into sight the need for data collection, management, and distribution. Boards with microcontrollers, such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi, have gained wide acceptance and are used mainly for educational and research purposes. Utilizing the information available via sensors connected to these platforms requires extended technical knowledge. In this work, we present a sensor management framework, SensoMan, that manages a collection of sensors spread in the environment connected to microcontroller boards. We present the framework’s architecture, a method for sensor data management, and a prototype system. Sensor data can also trigger the execution of actions on actuators. Thus, we further propose a rule engine as well as social connectivity following a scheme where sensors and their data can be shared among users. Our work shows that the creation of such a system is feasible and can use simple equipment (e.g., sensors, controller plugs) that can be replicated in other environments. The use of SensoMan is demonstrated via two scenarios that show its potential in combining simple tools that do not require an extended learning curve. A small-scale user study was also performed. Full article
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18 pages, 1125 KiB  
Article
A Network Architecture and Routing Protocol for the MEDIcal WARNing System
by Luca Leonardi, Lucia Lo Bello, Gaetano Patti and Orazio Ragusa
J. Sens. Actuator Netw. 2021, 10(3), 44; https://doi.org/10.3390/jsan10030044 - 30 Jun 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3079
Abstract
The MEDIcal WARNing (MEDIWARN) system continuously and automatically monitors the vital parameters of pre-intensive care hospitalized patients and, thanks to an intelligent processing system, provides the medical teams with a better understanding of their patients’ clinical condition, thus enabling a prompt reaction to [...] Read more.
The MEDIcal WARNing (MEDIWARN) system continuously and automatically monitors the vital parameters of pre-intensive care hospitalized patients and, thanks to an intelligent processing system, provides the medical teams with a better understanding of their patients’ clinical condition, thus enabling a prompt reaction to any change. Since the hospital units generally lack a wired infrastructure, a wireless network is required to collect sensor data in a server for processing purposes. This work presents the MEDIWARN communication system, addressing both the network architecture and a simple, lightweight and configurable routing protocol that fits the system requirements, such as the ability to offer path redundancy and mobility support without significantly increasing the network workload and latency. The novel protocol, called the MultiPath Routing Protocol for MEDIWARN (MP-RPM), was therefore designed as a solution to support low-latency reliable transmissions on a dynamic network while limiting the network overhead due to the control messages. The paper describes the MEDIWARN communication system and addresses the experimental performance evaluation of an implementation in a real use-case scenario. Moreover, the work discusses a simulative assessment of the MEDIWARN communication system performance obtained using different routing protocols. In particular, the timeliness and reliability results obtained by the MP-RPM routing protocol are compared with those obtained by two widely adopted routing protocols, i.e., the Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) and the Destination-Sequenced Distance-Vector Routing (DSDV). Full article
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Review

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31 pages, 33015 KiB  
Review
A Comprehensive Review of IoT Networking Technologies for Smart Home Automation Applications
by Vasilios A. Orfanos, Stavros D. Kaminaris, Panagiotis Papageorgas, Dimitrios Piromalis and Dionisis Kandris
J. Sens. Actuator Netw. 2023, 12(2), 30; https://doi.org/10.3390/jsan12020030 - 3 Apr 2023
Cited by 29 | Viewed by 8968
Abstract
The expediential increase in Internet communication technologies leads to its expansion to interests beyond computer networks. MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) can now be smaller with higher performance, leading to tiny sensors and actuators with enhanced capabilities. WSN (Wireless Sensor Networks) and IoT [...] Read more.
The expediential increase in Internet communication technologies leads to its expansion to interests beyond computer networks. MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) can now be smaller with higher performance, leading to tiny sensors and actuators with enhanced capabilities. WSN (Wireless Sensor Networks) and IoT (Internet of Things) have become a way for devices to communicate, share their data, and control them remotely. Machine-to-Machine (M2M) scenarios can be easily implemented as the cost of the components needed in that network is now affordable. Some of these solutions seem to be more affordable but lack important features, while other ones provide them but at a higher cost. Furthermore, there are ones that can cover great distances and surpass the limits of a Smart Home, while others are more specialized for operation in small areas. As there is a variety of choices available, a more consolidated view of their characteristics is needed to figure out the pros and cons of each of these technologies. As there are a great number of technologies examined in this paper, they are presented regarding their connectivity: Wired, Wireless, and Dual mode (Wired and Wireless). Their oddities are examined with metrics based on user interaction, technical characteristics, data integrity, and cost factor. In the last part of this article, a comparison of these technologies is presented as an effort to assist home automation users, administrators, or installers in making the right choice among them. Full article
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