Operating system support for data acquisition in sensor networks

Due to modularity and heterogeneity in Wireless Sen-sor Networks sensing devices, a sensor application devel-oped for a given platform will seldom be portable to a dif-ferent one, unless the run-time support systems on those platforms deliver mechanisms that abstract and encapsu-late the sensor platform in an adequate manner. In this article we propose a software/hardware inter-face that is able to abstract families of sensing devices in an uniform fashion. We define classes of sensing de-vices based on their finality (e.g. sensing acceleration, sensing temperature), and establish a common substrate for each class. Each individual device in a class is able to describe itself and its properties, in a similar fashion to the IEEE 1451 standard sensors transducer electronic data sheet. A thin software layer adapts individual de-vices to fit the minimal requirements of its sensor class. Software-based self-description allows applications to use individual sensors ’ extended characteristics. We show that this strategy does not incur in excessive overhead, and presents a significant advantage with relation to solu-tions found in other operating system for sensor networks.