Wireless sensor network gateway unit with failed link auto-redirecting capability

• US 7,839,764 B2
• Filed: 08/19/2008
• Issued: 11/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/03/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: National Taiwan University (Government of The Republic of China)
• Original Assignee: National Taiwan University (Government of The Republic of China)
• Inventors: Yang, En-Cheng, Jiang, Joe-Air, Tseng, Chwan-Lu, Lu, Fu-Ming, Lin, Shih-Hsiang, Chen, Chia-Pang, Lin, Tzu-Shiang, Yen, Chung-Wei, Wu, Yung-Cheng, Wu, Zong-Siou, Liao, Chih-Sheng, Lin, Kuang-Chang, Tseng, Chu-Ping, Lin, Chen-Ying, Szu, Shih-Hao
• Primary Examiner(s): LEE, CHI HO A
• Application Number:
  US12/229,105
• Publication Number:
  US 20090252032A1
• Time in Patent Office: 826 Days
• Field of Search: 370/216, 370/401, 370/466, 370/465
• US Class Current: 370/216
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0654 using network fault recovery ring fault isolation or reconfiguration in loop networks without recovery actions by a network management system H04L12/437
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/22 Alternate routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/28 using route fault recovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/16 Gateway arrangements

Abstract

A wireless sensor network gateway unit is proposed, which is designed for integration to a wireless sensor network (WSN) for providing a gateway function with a failed link auto-redirecting capability for the wireless sensor network. The proposed WSN gateway unit is characterized by the provision of an failed link auto-redirecting capability, which can respond to the failure of any sensor node in the WSN system by performing a failed link auto-redirecting operation for redirecting the down-linked good sensor nodes for linking to a nearby good sensor node to thereby allow the down-linked good sensor nodes to be nevertheless able to transfer data to the WSN gateway unit of the invention. This feature allows the WSN gateway unit of the invention to maintain good operational reliability for the WSN system.

Claims

1. A wireless sensor network gateway unit for use in cooperation with a wireless sensor network and a wireless communication system, wherein the wireless sensor network is composed of a plurality of sensor nodes, for providing a data-transmission gateway function for the wireless sensor network to communicate with the wireless communication system;

the wireless sensor network gateway unit comprising;

a wireless sensor network linking module, which is used for wireless linking to the wireless sensor network for data exchange with each sensor node in the wireless sensor network to receive each set of ecological data acquired by each sensor node;

a wireless sensor network configuration module, which is capable of configuring the sensor nodes in the wireless sensor network based on a predetermined topology for allowing each sensor node to exchange data with the wireless sensor network linking module by a multihop routing method;

a data transmission module, which is capable of converting each received set of ecological data into a specific data format based on a wireless communication protocol that is compliant with the wireless communication system;

a wireless communication linking module, which is capable of linking to the wireless communication system for transmitting the formatted ecological data from the data transmission module to the wireless communication system;

a node-failure event responding module, which is capable of responding to a node-failure event in the wireless sensor network by issuing a redirection enable message; and

a failed-link redirecting module, which is capable of responding to the redirection enable message by performing a failed link auto-redirecting operation for the wireless sensor network.

2. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 1, wherein the wireless sensor network system utilize the Zigbee wireless communication protocol for the sensor nodes to communicate with each other.

3. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 1, wherein the wireless sensor network system utilize the Bluetooth wireless communication protocol for the sensor nodes to communicate with each other.

4. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 1, wherein the wireless sensor network linking module utilizes the standard S-MAC (Sensor Media Access Control) protocol for data communication with the wireless sensor network system.

5. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 1, wherein the topology used by the wireless sensor network configuration module for configuring the wireless sensor network is a tree topology.

6. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 1, which has a built-in GPS (Global Positioning System) function for acquiring a set of GPS geographical position data for inclusion in the ecological data.

7. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 1, which has a set of built-in sensing functions for acquiring the ecological data including temperature, humidity, sunlight amount, and wind speed.

8. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 1, wherein the ecological data transmitted by the data transmission module includes geographical position, temperature, humidity, sunlight amount, wind speed, and pest number.

9. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 1, wherein the data transmission module utilizes the SMS (Short Message Service) protocol for wireless transmission of the ecological data.

10. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 1, wherein the data transmission module utilizes the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) protocol for wireless transmission of the ecological data.

11. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication linking module is a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) linking module.

12. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 1, further comprising:

a wireless sensor network management control module, which is capable of performing a set of host-specified management control actions on the wireless sensor network system in response to a set of management control commands issued by the host server and received via the wireless data communication system.

13. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 12, wherein the management control actions performed by the wireless sensor network management control module include a clock synchronization process for clock synchronization of all the sensor nodes in the wireless sensor network.

14. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 13, wherein the clock synchronization process performed by the wireless sensor network management control module is based an RBS (Reference Broadcast Synchronization) method.

15. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 13, wherein the clock synchronization process performed by the wireless sensor network management control module is based a TPSN (Timing-sync Protocol for Sensor Networks) method.

16. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 1, which is realized with a personal computer unit.

17. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 1, which is realized with a programmable embedded microprocessor system.

18. A wireless sensor network gateway unit for use in cooperation with a wireless sensor network and a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) wireless communication system, wherein the wireless sensor network is composed of a plurality of sensor nodes, for providing a data-transmission gateway function for the wireless sensor network to communicate with the GSM wireless communication system;

the wireless sensor network gateway unit comprising;

a wireless sensor network linking module, which is used for wireless linking to the wireless sensor network for data exchange with each sensor node in the wireless sensor network to receive each set of ecological data acquired by each sensor node;

a wireless sensor network configuration module, which is capable of configuring the sensor nodes in the wireless sensor network based on a predetermined topology for allowing each sensor node to exchange data with the wireless sensor network linking module by a multihop routing method;

a data transmission module, which is capable of converting each received set of ecological data into a specific data format based on a wireless communication protocol that is compliant with the GSM wireless communication system;

a wireless communication linking module, which is capable of linking to the GSM wireless communication system for transmitting the formatted ecological data from the data transmission module to the GSM wireless communication system;

a node-failure event responding module, which is capable of responding to a node-failure event in the wireless sensor network by issuing a redirection enable message;

a failed-link redirecting module, which is capable of responding to the redirection enable message by performing a failed link auto-redirecting operation for the wireless sensor network; and

a wireless sensor network management control module, which is capable of performing a set of host-specified management control actions on the wireless sensor network system in response to a set of management control commands issued by the host server and received via the wireless data communication system.

19. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 18, wherein the wireless sensor network system utilize the Zigbee wireless communication protocol for the sensor nodes to communicate with each other.

20. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 18, wherein the wireless sensor network system utilize the Bluetooth wireless communication protocol for the sensor nodes to communicate with each other.

21. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 18, wherein the wireless sensor network linking module utilizes the standard S-MAC (Sensor Media Access Control) protocol for data communication with the wireless sensor network system.

22. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 18, wherein the topology used by the wireless sensor network configuration module for configuring the wireless sensor network is a tree topology.

23. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 18, which has a built-in GPS (Global Positioning System) function for acquiring a set of GPS geographical position data for inclusion in the ecological data.

24. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 18, which has a set of built-in sensing functions for acquiring the ecological data including temperature, humidity, sunlight amount, and wind speed.

25. The wireless sensor network gateway unit of claim 18, wherein the ecological data transmitted by the data transmission module includes geographical position, temperature, humidity, sunlight amount, wind speed, and pest number.