Department Publications

A wired fence based intrusion detection and alerting mechanism for boundaries separating wildlife habitats and human settlements was implemented, particularly as a solution to the Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC). The objective of the research reported in this paper is to propose and verify an alternative technique for this wired fence based alerting mechanism to overcome its limitations and to improve its effectiveness. This article presents a comprehensive study of alternative solutions with deliberate consideration of the practical constraints. Wi-Alert is a wireless sensor network based intrusion detection system proposed as the best alternative solution. This article reports the outcomes of the first two phases of ongoing developments of Wi-Alert. The first phase of experiments was conducted to investigate the multi-path effect reduction techniques at one site. In the next phase, experiments were conducted to verify …

Wireless Sensor Networks consist of inexpensive, low power sensor nodes deployed to monitor the environment and collect data. Gathering information in an energy efficient manner is a critical aspect to prolong the network lifetime. Clustering algorithms have an advantage of enhancing the network lifetime. Current clustering algorithms usually focus on global re-clustering and local re-clustering separately. This article, proposed a combination of those two re-clustering methods to reduce the energy consumption of the network. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm can apply to homogeneous as well as heterogeneous wireless sensor networks. In addition, the cluster head rotation happens, only when its energy drops below a dynamic threshold value computed by the algorithm. The simulation result shows that, the proposed algorithm prolong the network lifetime compared to existing algorithms.

The paper presents a wireless body area sensor network (BASN) for evaluating the effectiveness of fitness exercising. The goal of our work is to provide a mobile and an accurate way of quantifying the energy expenditure during a fitness exercise session. While energy expenditure estimates are available in modern exercise machines, no accurate method exists for outdoor exercising. The prototype system implemented includes an IEEE 802.15.4(Zigbee) based wireless body area sensor network which measures physiological and kinetic features related to the activity being monitored, and a mobile application for visualization of the estimated energy expenditure. The paper outlines the sensor hardware used, the body area network which collects the measurements from the sensor nodes, the algorithm for energy computation and experimental results. The system, once trained can be used with any form of outdoor …

We present a novel method where smart phone sensors are used to sense the prevailing traffic situation and to share extracted information among a community. Instead of using the power-hungry GPS receiver in the mobile device for detecting congestion through vehicular motion, we use the accelerometer along with a novel algorithm. We show that traffic congestion situations can be identified with 78% accuracy with our technique. Vehicular traffic has become a severe problem, particularly in the less developed countries. Therefore pre awareness of congestion situations is very important for an efficient lifestyle.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) composed of large numbers of sensor nodes to monitor the environment and collect data. Self-organization of sensor nodes has been widely investigated to enhance the quality of service provided by WSNs. This paper proposes a Severity based Clustering Algorithm for Emergency (SCAE) for WSNs. The residual energy of nodes and severity of the emergency environment are the key parameters of SCAE. The severity of the emergency situation is estimated by using Dempster-Shafer theory. SCAE minimizes the communication loss due to node failures in an emergency environment. This is achieved by delaying the cluster head failures in the network and allocating less priority to non-cluster heads to select their cluster head which might get dropped from the network quickly. Communication failures due to node failures have been minimized successfully by considering the severity …

Wireless sensor networks may contain hundreds or thousands number of sensor nodes, monitoring specified parameters in the environment. These sensor nodes have the ability to communicate with each other or directly to an external base station. Current clustering algorithms provide an effective way to prolong the network lifetime. However, gathering information and communicating with each other is crucial in an emergency situation. To address this problem, the paper proposes an emergency response unequal clustering algorithm for wireless sensor networks. The proposed algorithm has been able to utilize the energy usage of the network with the novel approach in unequal clustering. Furthermore, this addresses the node failures in an emergency situation. The simulation result shows that the proposed algorithm has optimized the energy usage and reduce the communication failure compared to other …

In an emergency, combining Wireless Sensor Network's data with the knowledge gathered from various other information sources and navigation algorithms, could help safely guide people to a building exit while avoiding the risky areas. This article presents an emergency response and navigation support architecture for data gathering, knowledge manipulation, and navigational support in an emergency situation. At normal state, the system monitors the environment. When an emergency event detects, the system sends messages to first responders and immediately identifies the risky areas from safe areas to establishing escape paths. The main functionalities of the system include, gathering data from a wireless sensor network, which is deployed in a multi-story indoor environment, processing it with information available in a knowledge base, and sharing the decisions made, with first responders and people in …

A wireless sensor network (WSN) specifically designed for detecting elephant intrusions into villages that border wildlife reserves and alerting threatened communities of the location of the same is described. Novel strategies for hardware, firmware and communication have been applied, exploiting the rareness of events to be detected and the low data rates and light traffic load involved, in order to balance power consumption, cost, easy installation and testing in rural areas. Attempts have been made to build in automatic preventive maintenance measures and maintainable by personnel without technical know-how. The paper presents the design of the system and the experimental evaluation of a prototype implementation.