Discipline: Computer Sciences and Information Management
Subcategory: Computer Science & Information Systems
Damien Burks - Texas Southern University
Co-Author(s): Jamaal Roby and Wei Wayne Li, Texas Southern University, Houston, TX
Energy consumption is an obstruction to various applications of battery-powered wireless sensor networks (WSNs). This tends to be a significant obstacle due to the sensor nodes (SNs) being remote locations. To address this issue, we use remote-controlled vehicles (RCVs) to detect the sensor nodes in order to replenish the energy of those WSNs. Different from prior works, we allow the RCV camera to detect wireless sensor nodes in which the WSNs will be eligible for recharging. Detecting and charging are the main components of the test-bed. This accomplished through the use of remote controlled vehicles (RCVs), Labview, and a evaluation module commercially developed by Powercast. The evaluation board is used to power the SNs. Cameras on the RCVs are used to pinpoint the SNs. Labview is used to send commands directing the RCVs to the locations of the SNs. Throughout the course of our research, we have been able to effectively send commands to the RCVs through Labview. During a small-scale implementation, however, we were unable to detect/locate the SNs. Future work will consist of configuring the camera on the RCVs to detect SNs through Labview. We plan on using visual recognition techniques to be able to detect the SNs.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): This work was partially supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) CREST Program under grants NSF-1137732.
Faculty Advisor: Wei Wayne Li, liww@tsu.edu
Role: My part of the research consisted of created a wireless network bridge between the remote controlled vehicles and the Desktop computer running Labview using two routers. Also, I was in charge of setting up Labview and going through test-runs.