Abstract: Wireless Sensor Networks: Trends, Applications, and Development Platforms

Energy and bandwidth constraints are major concerns in developing applications in wireless sensor networks. Hence, most traditional applications in this field are designed to deal with input data that is of low-bandwidth nature. In this talk we examine the possibilities in using high-bandwidth input data while the network communication is maintained at low-bandwidth levels. In particular, we will provide examples of how on-board computing and collaborative processing techniques can be employed to address problems in network self-organization and tracking applications using distributed image sensors. Several hardware and software platforms developed at the Wireless Sensor Networks Lab at Stanford University that enable efficient algorithm development and testing for these applications will also be introduced.