Performance Monitoring and Control in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract: Wireless personal area networks have emerged as an important communication infrastructure in areas such as at-home healthcare and home automation, independent living and assistive technology, as well as sports and wellness. Wireless personal area networks, including body sensor networks, are becoming more mature and are considered to be a realistic alternative as communication infrastructure for demanding services. However, to transmit data from e.g., an ECG in wireless networks is also a challenge, especially if multiple sensors compete for access. Contention-based networks offer simplicity and utilization advantages, but the drawback is lack of predictable performance. Recipients of data sent in wireless sensor networks need to know whether they can trust the information or not. Performance measurements, monitoring and control is of crucial importance for medical and healthcare applications in wireless sensor networks.This thesis focuses on development, prototype implementation and evaluation of a performance management system with performance and admission control for wireless sensor networks. Furthermore, an implementation of a new method to compensate for clock drift between multiple wireless sensor nodes is also shown. Errors in time synchronization between nodes in Bluetooth networks, resulting in inadequate data fusion, are also analysed.