A Framework to (re)Configure a Heterogeneous Distributed Sensor Network for Closed-loop Control
Authors
Abstract
Distributed Sensor and actuator networks (SANs) are deployed to sense, monitor and act on the environment, Wireless Sensor Networks offer some flexibility and lower installation cost advantages in those settings and are integrated within a distributed heterogeneous network. The underlying infrastructure may include wired or wireless devices, PCs and backbone servers arranged in an heterogeneous distributed system. Direct interfacing of sensor and actuator nodes to the industrial networks allow monitoring and control systems to be easily integrated and commanded from external, possibly web-based platforms. These architectures raise important research issues in terms of performance control requirements.In this paper we propose a framework for interacting with real-world devices by abstracting proprietary protocols, allowing the interaction between client applications and heterogeneous sensor network platforms and protocols. The architecture was designed to allow the (re)configuration of alarms, actions or closed-loop techniques in any part of the system (sensors or PCs), offering flexibility and the possibility to modify for providing performance control guarantees. It allows users to configure and apply various operations, including complex closed-loop techniques that monitor and act over any actuator in the network, independently of the underlying node infrastructure. Supported by the proposed architecture we develop a framework that is being deployed in an industrial testbed. The performance of the prototype implementation will be discussed with emphasis on timing because the readings are used to compute closed-loop control.