Towards wireless sensor networks with enhanced vision capabilities

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks are expected to become an important tool for various security, surveillance and/or monitoring applications. The paper discusses selected practical aspects of development of such networks. First, design and implementation of an exemplary wireless sensor network for intrusion detection and classification are briefly presented. The network consists of two levels of nodes. At the first level, relatively simple microcontroller-based nodes with basic sensing devices and wireless transmission capabilities are used. These nodes are used as preliminary detectors of prospective intrusions. The second-level sensor node is built around a high performance FPGA controlling an array of cameras. The second-level nodes can be dynamically reconfigured to perform various types of visual data processing and analysis algorithms used to confirm the presence of intruders in the scene and to classify approximately the intrusion, if any. The paper briefly presents algorithms and overviews hardware of the network. In the last part of the paper, prospective directions for wireless sensor networks are analyzed and certain recommendations are included.