METHOD, APPARATUS AND SYSTEM FOR DISPLAYING TOPOLOGY INFORMATION OF WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK

• US 20100026686A1
• Filed: 10/31/2008
• Published: 02/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Shon, Tae Shik, KOO, Bon Hyun, Choi, Hyo Hyun, Choi, Wook
• Granted Patent: US 8,259,615 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/440
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

A method, apparatus and system for displaying topology information of a wireless sensor network includes a plurality of sensor nodes. The method typically includes: receiving node information collected and extracted from the sensor nodes; comparing the received node information with stored node information; computing, when the received node information is unequal to the stored node information, visualization information on a sensor node whose information is not present in the stored node information; and displaying the sensor nodes on concentric circles using the visualization information.

Claims

1. A method of displaying topology information of a sensor network having a plurality of sensor nodes, comprising:

receiving node information collected and extracted from a plurality of sensor nodes;

comparing the received node information with previously stored node information;

computing, when the received node information is unequal to the stored node information, visualization information regarding a sensor node of said plurality of sensor nodes whose information is included in the received node information and is not present in the previously stored node information; and

providing an output for display of sensor nodes on concentric circles using the visualization information.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending a designated recipient a message that an updated topology is available for display.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the node information comprises an identifier of a cluster head node (CH_ID), an identifier of an originating node (ORG_ID), and an identifier of a parent node of the originating node (PAR_ID).

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the visualization information comprises the node information, a hop count r, and an angle θ

.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the hop count comprises a number of hops from the cluster head node and corresponds to one of the concentric circles of the visualization information.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the angle θ

is obtained through dividing a 360 degree circumference by a number of sensor nodes having the same hop count r.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising converting polar coordinates comprising the hop count r and angle θ

into rectangular coordinates (x, y) on a screen of a display unit displaying the visualization information with a horizontal x-axis and vertical y-axis using the following equation;

x=r cos θ

y=r sin θ

.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein the visualization information comprises a ‘

BasisAngle’

value for preventing overlapped visualization of multiple nodes, and a value for adjusting gaps between visualized nodes with an increasing number of nodes.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the cluster head node is arranged at a center of the concentric circles, and an originating node and a parent node of the originating node are arranged respectively on an outer one and an inner one of two consecutive concentric circles.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the output means comprises a rendering unit for displaying the sensor nodes on concentric circles using the visualization information.

2. The method of claim 2, further comprising displaying the plurality of sensor nodes on concentric circles using the visualization information on a display.

11. An apparatus for displaying topology information of a sensor network having a plurality of sensor nodes, comprising:

a wireless unit for receiving node information collected and extracted from a plurality of sensor nodes;

a checking unit for comparing the received node information with previously stored node information;

a calculating unit for computing, when the received node information is unequal to the previously stored node information, visualization information regarding a sensor node of the plurality of sensor nodes whose information is included in the received node information and is not present in the previously stored node information; and

output means for providing an output of the visualization information for visual display.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the node information comprises an identifier of a cluster head node (CH_ID), an identifier of an originating node (ORG_ID), and an identifier of a parent node of the originating node (PAR_ID).

14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the visualization information comprises the node information, a hop count r, and an angle θ

.

15. The apparatus of claim 11, further comprising a memory unit to store the node information and visualization information.

16. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the hop count r comprises a number of hops from the cluster head node and corresponds to one of the concentric circles.

17. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the angle θ

is obtained by dividing a 360 degree circumference by a number of sensor nodes having the same hop count r.

18. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the calculating unit converts polar coordinates comprising hop count r and angle θ

into rectangular coordinates (x, y) on a screen of a display unit with a horizontal x-axis and vertical y-axis using the following equation;

x=r cos θ

y=r sin θ

.

19. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the visualization information comprises a ‘

BasisAngle’

value for preventing overlapped visualization of multiple nodes, and a value for adjusting gaps between visualized nodes with an increasing number of sensor nodes.

20. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the cluster head node is arranged at a center of the concentric circles, and an originating node and a parent node of the originating node are arranged respectively on an outer one and an inner one of two consecutive concentric circles.

21. A system of displaying topology information of a sensor network having a plurality of sensor nodes, comprising:

a data collecting node for collecting sensing data from a plurality of the sensor nodes and for transmitting the collected sensing data;

a relay server for receiving the sensing data from the data collecting node, for extracting node information from the received sensing data, and for broadcasting the extracted node information; and

one or more terminal devices, each terminal device receiving the extracted node information broadcast from the relay server, for computing visualization information of the sensor nodes, and for displaying the sensor nodes on concentric circles using the visualization information.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the sensing data comprises sensed data related to temperature, illumination and humidity, and an upper-level node identifier.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the relay server extracts node information including an identifier of a cluster head node (CH_ID), an identifier of an originating node (ORG_ID), and an identifier of a parent node of the originating node (PAR_ID) from the sensing data, and broadcasts the extracted node information.

24. The system of claim 21, wherein each terminal device computes visualization information including a hop count r and an angle θ

using the node information.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the hop count r comprises a number of hops from the cluster head node and corresponds to one of the concentric circles, and the angle e is obtained by dividing a 360 degree circumference by a number of nodes having the same hop count r.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein each terminal device converts polar coordinates comprising hop count r and angle 8 into rectangular coordinates (x, y) on a screen of a display unit with a horizontal x-axis and vertical y-axis using the following equation:

x=r cos θ

y=r sin θ

.

27. The system of claim 21, wherein the visualization information comprises a ‘

BasisAngle’

value for preventing overlapped visualization of multiple nodes, and a value for adjusting gaps between visualized nodes with an increasing number of nodes.