Network Architecture Design of an Agile Sensing System with Sandwich Wireless Sensor Nodes

Wireless sensor network (WSN) is recently emerged as a powerful tool in the structural health monitoring (SHM). Due to the limitations of wireless channel capacity and the heavy data traffic, the control on the network is usually not real time. On the other hand, many SHM applications require quick response when unexpected events, such as earthquake, happen. Realizing the need to have an agile monitoring system, an approach, called sandwich node, was proposed. Sandwich is a design of complex sensor node where two Imote2 nodes are connected with each other to enhance the capabilities of the sensing units. The extra channel and processing power, added into the nodes, enable agile responses of the sensing network, particularly in interrupting the network and altering the undergoing tasks for burst events. This paper presents the design of a testbed for examination of the performance of wireless sandwich nodes in a network. The designed elements of the network are the software architecture of remote and local nodes, and the triggering strategies for coordinating the sensing units. The performance of the designed network is evaluated through its implementation in a monitoring test in the laboratory. For both original Imote2 and the sandwich node, the response time is estimated. The results show that the sandwich node is an efficient solution to the collision issue in existing interrupt approaches and the latency in dense wireless sensor networks.