Wireless Sensor Networks 2009-2019

This report is about automatically monitoring forest fires, country wide utility equipment, aircraft, hospitals and much more over wide areas, something previously impossible. It is becoming possible thanks to the new Wireless Sensor Networks WSN otherwise known as Ubiquitous Sensor Networks USN. Uniquely, these employ so-called "mesh networking" of tags to provide massive scalability - a small system is easily made into a very large one. The new systems are also exceptionally fault tolerant, easy to install and they are increasingly affordable compared with previous forms of active RFID ie RFID where there is a battery in the tag to enhance performance. Indeed, they often subsume the functions of traditional active RFID and Real Time Locating Systems RTLS. The new WSN are even uniquely tolerant of the hardware being moved and some are remotely reconfigurable.

 

So what is a mesh network? Think of the electronic equivalent of party guests passing on the message that a child is missing until that child is found - many short range communications, in many directions - like a mesh - add up to finding the child further away. All those people were able to pass on a message in an ad hoc network that dissolved when its task is done. In the electronic equivalent, WSN can form ad hoc networks where many small ranges add up to a big one thus permitting the tags to be much smaller, lower cost and more reliable than would otherwise be the case. However, here the network operates without human intervention. It performs its tasks silently and automatically.

 

Many now refer to traditional active RFID as First Generation. Examples of this include the device that opens your car from a distance and the device in your car windshield that uses a battery to incur and record non-stop tolling charges. Another example is the widespread tracking of military supplies and assets by electronically recording when they have been near an electronic device that reads the tag using radio waves. Real Time Location Systems RTLS, that continuously interrogate the tag from a distance, are called Second Generation active RFID and WSN is called Third Generation because it works in yet another completely different manner to provide its unique benefits.

 

Most commonly, these three generations address different markets and use different frequencies and standards. First Generation has been around for about 60 years, RTLS for about 12 years and USN, in fully functional form, is only now becoming available. However, only Second Generation (RTLS) and Third Generation ( WSN) have the potential to become multibillion dollar businesses. While there are many academic texts about WSN dealing with the highly complex technical challenges of producing these systems, readable material putting such systems in context, including forecasting their rollout and commercial opportunity are few and far between, so the present report covers these aspects without being excessively technical. That said, some technical background would help the reader to more readily grasp the concepts.

 

Uniquely, this report new goes into depth on WSN from a global, commercial viewpoint. We examine a large number of potential applications of WSN including intelligent buildings, military deployments, body monitoring and the ultimate supply chain where the location and condition of everything is known all the time. (RTLS will eventually be affordable and technically appropriate for use in major supply chains where it will locate things from a distance in real time but, unlike WSN, they will not comprehensively monitor condition or have the other advantages that attributed to WSN)

 

In this report, we show how, for the more demanding potential applications, sensing, information theory, transmission and detection, networking, control theory, system theory, enterprise software and middleware all need to be improved and that is why countries such as Japan and Korea have very broad ranging WSN programs (often referred to as USN), involving both government and industry, to improve all these aspects. Only then will the market need of deployment of billions of tags in the larger applications become a reality. A wide variety of business opportunities are now becoming available.

 

We analyse the technologies, standards, development programs, impediments to rollout and other aspects of USN. Most of these companies are not involved in the earlier generations of active RFID or they are minimally involved, though some are using skills in RTLS to progress to WSN. Others are seeking to apply mass production skills in allied technologies. For example, in late 2008, Toppan Forms in Japan, part of the $12 billion Toppan Printing, told us that its strategic plan now involved USN/WSN. It can leverage its skills in printed electronics and data management. Others wish to leverage their skills in software and hardware for sensing. IDTechEx notes that it is largely completely different companies that are in the lead in the three generations of active RFID and this may continue.

 

Progress is now rapid and the much smaller size of the latest WSN tags is one indication of this. While the original concept was for billions or even trillions of tags the size of dust, the first ten years of development of USN has more often seen expensive tags, some the size of a videotape or, more recently, palm sized. However, further miniaturisation and cost reduction are now imminent.