Ubiquitous Sensing and Actuation

Synopsis

The advent of advanced wireless technologies has enabled communication in previously difficult or uncharted environments. We have been leading international research in ubiquitous/networked embedded systems, with a special emphasis on Quality of Service (QoS) in low-power and low-cost wireless networks. The current focus is on designing efficient, reliable and real-time mechanisms under stringent application requirements and environmental conditions particularly, in the unlicensed and over-populated ISM band.

Leadership & Achievements

CISTER hosted the 12th edition of the highly reputed European Wireless Sensor Network conference (EWSN 2015). 

Mário Alves served as the Wireless Sensor Track Chair of the Real-Time Systems Symposium 2013 (RTSS 2013), the flagship conference on embedded real-time systems.

Eduardo Tovar served as track chair for the Wireless Sensor Network track of the 17th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS 2011), held in Chicago, IL, USA.

CISTER researchers are world leaders on IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee technologies (ART-WiSe). We have provided methodologies to analyze, dimension and engineer WSNs with improved QoS and the open-ZB toolset has been made publicly available (with over 100000 visits and 6000 downloads – or an average of 4-5 downloads per day). It includes: (i) the implementation of the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol in TinyOS, for the MICAz and TelosB motes; (ii) the implementation of the ZigBee Network Layer for supporting synchronized multiple cluster topologies (the Cluster-Tree topology) in TinyOS, for the TelosB motes; (iii) simulation models of the IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee protocols in OPNET; (iv) a MATLAB tool for timing analysis and network dimensioning, based on Network Calculus. This framework triggered the creation of the TinyOS 15.4 and ZigBee Working Groups, in which CISTER researchers have been actively involved.

Relevant Projects

International Projects

National Projects

Relevant Publications

Monitoring large scale IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee based Wireless Sensor Networks CISTER-TR-131101 
Stefano Tennina, Olfa Gaddoura, Fernando Royo, Anis Koubâa, Mário Alves

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7th European ZigBee Developers' Conference. 6 to 7, Nov, 2013. Munich, Germany.

On Packet Size and Error Correction Optimisations in Low-Power Wireless Networks CISTER-TR-131001 
Claro Noda, Shashi Prabh, Mário Alves, Thiemo Voigt

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10th Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensing and Communication in Wireless Networks (SECON 2013), IEEE. 24 to 27, Jun, 2013, pp 212-220. New Orleans, LA, U.S.A..

Dimensioning and Worst-case Analysis of Cluster-Tree Sensor Networks HURRAY-TR-100302 
Petr Jurcik, Ricardo Severino, Anis Koubâa, Mário Alves, Eduardo Tovar

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ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN), Article No 14, ACM. Aug 2010, Volume 7, Issue 2.

TDBS: A Time Division Beacon Scheduling Mechanism for ZigBee Cluster-Tree Wireless Sensor Networks HURRAY-TR-081201 
Anis Koubâa, André Cunha, Mário Alves, Eduardo Tovar

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Real-Time Systems Journal, Springer. Dec 2008, Volume 40, Issue 3, pp 321-354.