Questionnaire on WSN Deployments/Applications
====================================================================
This is an informal questionnaire on experience, expectation and
generally a broad practical overview of different wireless sensor
network deployments that have been done in the community. If you can't
answer a specific question don't panic (and move on), or if you think
another question would be more appropriate please don't be shy and
note all your comments as best as you can. In any case, if you have
supporting material (slides, photos, papers, links, etc.) and don't
mind sharing these please attach a copy of this material to your
response. If you know any other deployment, please don't hesitate to
forward this questionnaire.
I intend to compile the data into a report and possibly even publish
the findings. Definately i will contact you again before any such
publication is finalized to discuss the possible options of
dissemination as well as the interpretation of the results of this
survey.
If anything else is unclear, please ask! I look forward to your
submissions to:
Jan Beutel
ETH Zurich
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
1 - General Information
=====================================================================
** Project name:
** Institution:
** Project contact:
** Questionnaire submitted by:
** Project start:
** Project end:
** Deployment duration:
** Number of nodes:
** Webpage:
2 - Project Idea
======================================================================
** Application:
** What was the original plan?
** Initial development timeframe anticipated:
** Intended "customer/user" of the application (i.e. scientists,
industry, research demo, educational...)?
3 - Targeted Application Details - Performance
======================================================================
** In/Outdoor:
** Environment details:
** Hardware used:
** Software used:
** Power consumption:
** Power supply:
** Expected lifetime:
** Data rate and type (bursty, periodic?):
** Network diameter (number of hops):
** Accuracy needs:
** Reliability:
** Mobility:
** Reactivity:
** Delay:
** Single-/multi-sink:
** User serviceability:
** Synchronization needs:
** Uni-/bi-directional communication:
** Storage:
etc...
4 - Project Planning
======================================================================
** How did you plan the project? (Technical and organizational issues)
** How did you intend to follow up on progress, bugs, and general
project status?
** How was your team organized?
** Development approach (bottom up or top down)?
** Planned time for the development/test/deployment?
** Planned resources (funding, manpower, infrastructure)?
** Did you plan to outsource parts of the development, hire external
staff or have (sub-)systems manufactured?
5 - Development
======================================================================
** Short synopsis:
** Did you discover "show-stoppers" during development?
** Did you need to acquire additional expertise or consult external
parties to develop your application?
** Duration:
** Changes to the original plan?
6 - Testing (Lab/Home work)
======================================================================
** What did you do to test prior to deployment in the field?
** Did you plan on testing at all?
** Did you perform calibration/parameter tuning?
** Duration:
** Did this incur changes to the original plan?
7 - Deployment (Field work)
======================================================================
** Short synopsis:
** Did you integrate special means to aid in the deployment?
** What worked and what did not work?
** The unexpected/unanticipated (both positive and negative)?
** Duration:
** Changes to the original plan?
8 - Operation Phase
======================================================================
** Short synopsis:
** Duration:
** Percentage of nodes operational:
** Percentage of data acquired:
** Percentage of data correct:
** Number of user interventions (and type):
** Did you meet the expected performance?
** Causes of failures (if any):
** Deviation from the original plan?
9 - Decommissioning (if applicable)
=====================================================================
** Short synopsis:
10 - Overall Project Assessment
=====================================================================
** Overall success or failure? Please rate in the list given and add
additional description if necessary:
( ) Full success, exceeding expectations
( ) Partial success, but an overall positive assessment
( ) Valuable experience, satisfactory results
( ) Expensive trial-run, mixed emotions, room for improvement
( ) Mostly failure, major redesign/rework necessary
( ) Complete failure, application/idea most probably infeasible
** Did you meet your planned:
(yes) (no )
Commissioning date ( ) ( )
Development time ( ) ( )
Performance ( ) ( )
** Was your original project plan flawed? If yes, how?
** At what stage of the project did you define/agree upon a
specification of the final system/outcome?
( ) Planning
( ) Development
( ) Test
( ) Deployment
( ) Operation
( ) No specification available, details are still unclear today.
11 - Other Comments
=====================================================================
Questionnaire on WSN Deployments/Applications
====================================================================
This is an informal questionnaire on experience, expectation and
generally a broad practical overview of different wireless sensor
network deployments that have been done in the community. If you can't
answer a specific question don't panic (and move on), or if you think
another question would be more appropriate please don't be shy and
note all your comments as best as you can. In any case, if you have
supporting material (slides, photos, papers, links, etc.) and don't
mind sharing these please attach a copy of this material to your
response. If you know any other deployment, please don't hesitate to
forward this questionnaire.
I intend to compile the data into a report and possibly even publish
the findings. Definitely i will contact you again before any such
publication is finalized to discuss the possible options of
dissemination as well as the interpretation of the results of this
survey.
If anything else is unclear, please ask! I look forward to your
submissions to:
Jan Beutel
ETH Zurich
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
1 - General Information
=====================================================================
** Project name: Deployment-Support Network (JAWS)
** Institution: ETH Zurich
** Project contact: Jan Beutel
** Questionnaire submitted by: Jan Beutel
** Project start: ~09/2003
** Project end: ongoing
** Deployment duration: 02/2006 to now
** Number of nodes: 50+
** Webpage: http://www.btnode.ethz.ch/projects/jaws
2 - Project Idea
======================================================================
** Application:
a wireless testbed to be used as a tool for wsn research
** What was the original plan?
serial port replacement for distributed reprogramming/debugging of WSN
applications. the initial idea was to tunnel rs232 accross a multihop
backbone of bluetooth nodes to allow a single developer to connect to
a number of remote nodes in a network for development and testing
purposes from a single PC without the need for wiring. It was
envisioned to use presently available tools (no change to the
interface) with this testbed infrastructure.
** Initial development timeframe anticipated: 0.3-0.5 years
** Intended "customer/user" of the application (i.e. scientists,
industry, research demo, educational...)?
wsn researchers, possibly industry at a later stage
3 - Targeted Application Details - Performance
======================================================================
** In/Outdoor: indoor
** Environment details: office/lab environment
** Hardware used: btnode rev2 and btnode rev3
** Software used: btnut, different revisions
** Power consumption: ~30 mW with 150 mW peaks
** Power supply: 2xAA, optional fixed power
** Expected lifetime: min. 1 week
** Data rate and type (bursty, periodic?): 57600 baud serial port
tunneling, both bursty and constant rate
** Network diamater (number of hops): 10s of hops
** Accuracy needs: low
** Reliability: high, no loss of data over serial tunnel
** Mobility: none
** Reactivity: ~msec
** Delay: ~msec
** Single-/multi-sink: at first single sink wit multisink option later on
** User servicability: only for the exchange of batteries
** Synchronization needs: ?
** Uni-/bi-directional communication: bidirectional
** Storage: only local packet buffering
etc...
4 - Project Planning
======================================================================
** How did you plan the project? (Technical and organizational issues)
The basic project idea popped up over a predecessor project/prototype
and out of the need for such a "wireless reprogramming facility" to
alleviate the cumbersome development project. It was followed up by a
brief specification phase and a number of discussions/meetings. There
were no initial specification documents.
** How did you intend to follow up on progress, bugs, and general
project status?
Meetings, personal comunication, nothing else...
** How was your team organized?
2-3 PhDs, later on 1 technical staff for embedded software
** Development approach (bottom up or top down)?
Bottom up with a separation of some concerns/issues incl. assignments
** Planned time for the development/test/deployment?
~0.5 years
** Planned resources (funding, manpower, infrastructure)?
Development was planned in conjunction with the development of the
BTnode rev3 hardware as well as a move from the event based
btnode-system software to a multithreaded OS (BTnut). These cannot be
clearly separated but the JAWS project was a main application driver
for the latter two. Manpower and infrastructure was planned between
two labs (distributed systems and computer engineering and networks)
with a full-time technical staff and a number of PhD students at
different skill levels.
** Did you plan to outsource parts of the development, hire external
staff or have (sub-)systems manufactured?
Only the manufacturing of the BTnode rev3 hardware was outsourced.
5 - Development
======================================================================
** Short synopsis:
Based on a pre-prototype of a multihop Bluetooth network (TreeNet),
services for the tunneling of data over a multihop mesh were
developed. This at first was based on the notion of ATM circuit
switching and reliable (no packet loss) data transfer from end to
end. It later evolved into client/server setup with services being
offered at the server level and at the endpoints (DSN nodes) with an
intermittent connection fabric (multihop network). Over time a number
of services evolved that are now the core of the application (remote
code distribution, remote procedure calls, logging, time
synchronisation, power saving using dual radios).
** Did you discover "showstoppers" during development?
Yes: (i) indefficienicies in the BTnode rev2 Bluetooth hardware (ii)
buggy flow control in the BTnode rev3 Bluetooth hardware (iii)
performance mismatch between Atmega128 @ 8MHz (slow) and Blueooth
wireless @ 1Mbit/sec (fast)
** Did you need to acquire additional expertise or consult external
parties to develop your application?
Yes: Bluetooth chipset vendor for firmware details
** Duration: 2-3 years
** Changes to the original plan?
Almost too many to note them all down. The most significant came when
we realized that (i) the original concept was flawed (simple tunneling
of serial ports would not scale due to a bottleneck at the sink) and
(ii) extensive testing and field experiments revealed very instable
operation of the application at large.
6 - Testing (Lab/Home work)
======================================================================
** What did you do to test prior to deployment in the field?
1st desktop style testing, 2nd single floor in an office building,
both with "walk around and collect" style node placements and software
updates, later by using the DSN itself for debugging and
profiling. Furthermore we have used an OS tracer extensively in the
earlier parts of the development to find nasty lower layer bugs in the
software.
** Did you plan on testing at all?
Yes
** Did you perform calibration/parameter tuning?
Yes. Extensive trial and error.
** Duration:
Testing is an ongoing effort. We now have a development setup of 10
nodes, a master site with 50 nodes and a number of customer sites
(different buildings, @industry partner) under operation. All are
hooked up to a monitoring framework (cacti).
Since about midway through the project we are using the sourcefourge
bugtracker and since about a year we are using cruisecontrol for
continuous integration of the software base.
** Did this incurr changes to the original plan?
Yes, see above.
7 - Deployment (Field work)
======================================================================
** Short synopsis:
There has been 2 generations of deployments both with slightly different
infrastructure.
** Did you integrate special means to aid in the deployment?
Remote code distribution, timestamped logging, RPC
** What worked and what did not work?
The serial tunneling idea from the very beginning was very fragile. It
was abandoned after a number of trials to fix the dataflow.
** The unexpected/unanticipated (both positive and negative)?
The development of such a system would have greatly benefited from a
testbed (i.e. the DSN itself). However it has proven to be a versatile
yet _very_ complex tools. In parts we have struggled a lot with
getting a concise description/documentation out that could be
understood/used by third parties.
** Duration: ongoing
** Changes to the original plan?
See above.
8 - Operation Phase
======================================================================
** Short synopsis:
See above (under Testing and Deployment).
** Duration: since early 2006
** Percentage of nodes operational: 85%
** Percentage of data acquired: unknown
** Percentage of data correct: unknown
** Number of user interventions (and type): Many, on a weekly basis.
** Did you meet the expected performance?
Some.
** Causes of failures (if any):
(i) unknown, (ii) sporadic failures of the radio
** Deviation from the original plan?
We anticipated that you use this app in a plug and play fashion, yet
it showed that it can only be handled when deployed/managed as an
infrastructure.
9 - Decommissioning (if applicable)
=====================================================================
** Short synopsis:
None yet.
10 - Overall Project Assessment
=====================================================================
** Overall success or failure? Please rate in the list given and add
additional description if necessary:
( ) Full success, exceeding expectations
(X) Partial success, but an overall positive assessment
( ) Valuable experience, satisfactory results
( ) Expensive trial-run, mixed emotions, room for improvement
( ) Mostly failure, major redesign/rework necessary
( ) Complete failure, application/idea most probably infeasible
** Did you meet your planned:
(yes) (no )
Commissioning date ( ) ( X )
Development time ( ) ( X )
Performance ( X ) ( )
** Was your original project plan flawed? If yes, how?
See above.
** At what stage of the project did you define/agree upon a
specification of the final system/outcome?
( ) Planning
( ) Development
( ) Test
(X) Depoloyment
( ) Operation
( ) No specification available, details are still unclear today.
11 - Other Comments
=====================================================================
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